PART 11

LIFE OF HUMILITY
AND
MEEKNESS
11





BY HIS HOLINESS AMBA SHENOUDA III,
POPE AND PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA
AND
THE APOSTOLIC SEE OF ALL THE PREDICATION OF
SAINT MARK








Translated from "WATANY" newspaper, 17 September 2000










Pride and magnificence.
(B)

The proud is exalted and falls...
The proud always justifies himself...
The proud loses the life of meekness,
and the life of repentance.....














He is exalted and falls.
Saint Augustin explained that the proud seem like smoke, and said:
Smoke is much elevated upwards; and as it is elevated, it is dispersed and ends.
On the contrary, flames are not elevated like smoke, but they remain forceful.
This saint said in his explanation of the psalms 37 and 73:
[The psalm says: "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a native green tree" (Ps. 37:35), higher than the cedar of Lebanon. Let us then suppose that he is raised upwards, and that he is haughty over the others, but what is he after that? The psalmist continues saying about him: "I passed by, and behold, he was no more; indeed I sought him, but he could not be found" (Ps. 37:36)..... exactly as if he were smoke, that was he whom I passed by.
It was also said in the psalm about such persons that they perish and are dispersed like smoke: "But the wicked shall perish.... Into smoke they shall vanish away" (Ps. 37:20)...... exactly like smoke which is dispersed while it is elevated upwards..... In its very elevation upwards, it is puffed up into a greater size, and as much great as its size is, so much its material will be disintegrated...... Thus we remark that what exterminates him, is his magnificence itself; because when he rises up and expands upwards, its volume increases and becomes lighter, it is lessened and lost, and then it disappears.
The enemies of God are likewise: when they start to be glorified and elevated, they rapidly disappear like smoke.....]
Saint Augustin
We mention here some persons who boast when grace supports them and they find that their life has been changed to better, and say: "My life has been changed and been renovated. I have become another person". They explain their experience to people, in the manner of saying: "I was.... and I have become......"!
While a person boasts about his elevation, grace goes far away from him, and then he falls. May he remember the words of the Bible about that:
"Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12).
If you stand, do not think that your standing is a permanent position which does not change. Remember the saints who fell. Thus your heart will be humiliated, and you will take heed for yourself.
Humility keeps you; because the Lord is near to the mortified in their hearts.
The humble person takes heed and is meticulous while he confesses his weakness; and thus he keeps far away from scandals and does not fall. But the proud is self-satisfied with his strength and does take care, and thus sin strikes him in what he does not know.
Satan has an experience of thousands of years in fighting human beings.
He may find you taking heed from a certain sin, and so he does not fight you with it. But he attacks you in another way for a long period, until you think that you have been raised up over the level of wars, and you misapprehend warning. Then he returns to you, while you are not ready, while your heart has become exalted ....... and so when you fall like this, you become certain that you are not over the level of falling.
Do not then think that falling is only for the beginners! And that you are not a beginner! since you have advanced in spiritual life!
When you were humble and taking heed, you prayed heatfully, and you asked God to give you help lest you fall. But now, you do not pray for this help, but rather you ask it only for others who are the only ones liable to falling, and not you! Thus you remain without help, and then you fall......
Saint Isaac meditated upon the verse: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." (Prov. 16:18). He said:
As much as magnificence appears in the soul, so much will be the fall, and the defeat which God permits. For God does not reject and abandon man, unless He finds his mind conversing with the thought of magnificence......
Those who come out of the way of humility, are denuded from the divine help and fall..... He who boasts about knowledge, is neglected and falls into blasphemy. He who is arrogant about asceticism is neglected and falls into adultery. He who is raised up because of his wisdom is neglected and falls into the dark snares of ignorance.
If he continues to be proud, then the angel who takes care of him goes far away from him. When the angel is near him, he moves him towards the preoccupation with righteousness. But when the angel is far away from him, the deceiver comes near him, and does not let him understand anything about the deed of righteousness.
Truthfully, is not Satan's raised up heart, the cause of his fall?....
It is said about him in the book of Ezechiel: "Because your heart is lifted up" (Ez. 28:1), "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor" (Ez. 28:17).
And it is said about him in the book of Isaiah: [For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High". Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit] (Isaiah 14: 13-15).
He was not satisfied with the glory which he possessed, but he desired a greater glory; and he lost what he had. The first man likewise desired the glory of divinity, and lost the glory of his humanity!
The astonishing matter is that the majority of proud people think that they are not proud.
That is undoubtfully due to their pride, because they constantly justify themselves. With that, they fall into another sin which is self-justification.
The proud justifies himself.
He constantly defends himself. He absolutely does not like to appear in the image of a sinner. He is always "righteous in his own eyes" and wants to be righteous in the eyes of people. If somebody draws his attention to an evident mistake, he will perhaps try to cover it with lies or excuses, far away from confession and repentance.
Our father Adam did not confess his sin, but he tried to justify himself; and that is what also our mother Eve did (Gen. 3); and we have inherited self-justification from them.
The sinner adds to his sin which he justifies, the sin of self-justication.
How many are the subterfuges to which the proud resorts for his justification! Among them, there are: casting the reponsibility upon others, or upon the environmental circumstances; denial, or the pretention of a sound intention, or that people did not understand him as he really is, or any other reasons which are all outside the spiritual limits.......!
How difficult is the word: "I have sinned", for the proud...... it hurts him.....
He would say it sometimes if that would draw praise to him! or if the image of false humility would satisfy his pride..... But inside himself, he absolutely does not feel that he has sinned. The word comes out of his mouth, and not out of his heart. He may say the word "I have sinned" or "I am wrong" by way of politics, and not with the spirit of humility.....
The proud do not confess, but they condemn others, in order to cover themselves.
Others must necessarily be wrong, because it is unreasonable for them to be wrong! As if they were infallible in all their doings!
Therefore the proud argues and discusses much, in order to justify himself.
It is not easy to deal with him. It is not easy to confer with him.
To him, conferring does not mean to understand another or to accept him. But his conferring with another means that this other accepts his opinion or is convinced of it.......
If the other is not convinced of his opinion, he may be irritated and angry, and treat the question with his nerves, so long as he could not treat it with opinion, thinking, and persuasion.
Therefore anger is the comrade of pride, the two follow each other.
In all this, the proud loses his meekness, contrarily to the humble who is a delicate, gentle, meek person, whose dealings with others are easy and therefore everybody loves him. He submits to them in the spirit of love, and thus he gains them. If he encounters a problem, he solves it with the meekness of wisdom. (James 3:13).
But the proud does not sin only from the spiritual point of view, but rather also from the social point of view, since he loses the love of many because of his pride.
The proud in his justification of himself, goes far away from the life of repentance.
How can a person repent, if he is constantly righteous in his own eyes?! Have those who are well, need of a physician?! (Matt. 9:12). Or how can that proud correct his mistakes, if he constantly justifies them?!
You do not abandon an error unless you first confess in yourself that it is wrong. But if you believe that you are right, you will remain where you are, you will change nothing in yourself.
The problem of self-reliance, dignity and personal pride, is what prevents man from confessing his faults, even before his father confessor!
Perhaps he confesses some sins whose mentioning does not shame him, and hides the rest, or simply passes by it, or he points to it from afar, or says it inclusively, or he says it while justifying it..... and he may not confess it all. And his confession is transformed into a complaint against another, as if he were confessing before the father confessor, the sins of others and not his own sins!
In his jusification of himself, one may call his sins by the name of virtues!
He may call the malice, the malevolence and the spitefulness in which he falls: a kind of wisdom! He may call his wrong adulation of his children: love and tenderness, while he may call his hardness: firmness and education. He may call his condemnation of others and his rebellion against situations: a sacred jealousy and a desire to correct....... and so on with the rest of his doings.
But what is the most dangerous matter in self-justification and in opposition, is for the mistaken proud, to begin philosophising his mistakes and justifying them in his ideas, in order to convince people about them!
Here comes to existence an atmosphere of intellectual perplexity, so that some people are embarrassed regarding where is truth! Self-justification in one's doings, is the justification of conduct that concerns the person himself alone. But the justification of ideas concerns values and principles. It takes a general direction..... Therefore the justification of wrong ideas is very dangerous, because truth is not its aim, but the self. A person is drawn to it when he is affected by psychological factors.
All that preoccupies the proud in his justification of himself, is the opinion of people about him, and he is not preoccupied by the destiny of this self in eternity, while he concentrates upon the veneration of people for himself!
He defends himself, he defends his thoughts and his actions. He explains, and perhaps he scandalises others with his explanation. He does not care for anything about that. But what is important to him, is that he himself appears to be innocent, sound, and far away from blame.
His justification of himself and his defence of himself, may lead him to accuse or hurt others; but he has no objection to that, so long as he comes to a satisfactory justification of himself.......
In their justification of themselves in intellectual errors, some have fallen into heresy or in doctrinal deviation. They persisted in that, or were prevented from confessing their error by their pride.
In self-justification, the conscience of the proud loses all power over him. He is lead by the spirit of pride and self-sufficiency.
What is astonishing is that those who justify themselves, pray asking for the forgiveness of their sins, while in their inside they do not see that they are sinners anyway!!
Verily self-justification does not benefit the soul, but it is repentance that benefits the soul.
Because repentance purifies the soul, while justification works towards covering the soul who remains in her wrong deeds..... Repentance means uncovering oneself and knowing his sins and blaming himself for those sins. But the proud, unfortunately, refuses to uncover himself and to confess his sins, and so he remains far away from repentance.