PART 7

LIFE OF HUMILITY
AND
MEEKNESS
7





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 August 20, 2000
















MEANS AND SIGNS
OF
HUMILITY
(A)





















We would like now to mention a vast and summarised program of training for humility, and we shall return later to the details of these points which we shall mention.
1. Since haughtiness resides in relying upon oneself and glorifying oneself, humility resides in self-denial.
The exercises for self-denial are very numerous, but it is not now the time to speak about them. Our Lord has placed self-denial at the forefront of the conditions of discipleship to Him. He said: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matt. 16:24). There is no doubt that it is through self-denial that man arrives at humility, because he who denies himself, can never seek glory or greatness for himself.
2. Also: A humble man who denies himself, does not defend himself.
He does not justify himself in anything as regards the things which concern him alone. He silently accepts what is said of him, like what did our Lord the Christ, glory be to Him, when He did not defend himself in front of Pilate or Herod. Likewise the just Joseph did not defend himself (Gen.39). There are numerous stories which we leave to be a special subject. The humble does not make any exceptions from this rule of not defending oneself, except when it is for the sake of others.
3. The humble constantly and truly, and with conviction reproaches himself , whether in himself or in front of people.
Once the Pope Theophilus visited the mountain of Nitria which was inhabited by a number of solitary hermits. He asked the father of the mountain about the virtues which they had brought to perfection. The latter then replied: "Believe me, my father, there is nothing better than that a man should return the reproach to himself in everything". Verily reproaching oneself is the virtue of the humble.
4. Reprimanding oneself leads to contrition:
It leads to a contrite heart in the interior, a contrite spirit because of his profound awareness of his wrongdoings which are hidden to people, but are not hidden to himself. This internal contrition keeps him afar from all the manifestations of outside greatness, and at the same time it brings him near to God, as the psalm says: "The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit" (Ps. 34:18); and also: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, these, O God, You will not despise" (Ps. 51:17).
5. One of the symptoms of contrition is the feeling of being unworthy:
as the lost son said when he was going to his father: "I have sinned .... and am no longer worthy to be called your son" (Luke 15:21); and as the centurion said to the Lord: "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof" (Matt. 8:8); and as John the Baptist said about the Lord Christ: "whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose" (John 1:27).
Thus the humble feels that he is unworthy of all the boons of God to him, and that he is unworthy of the honor which he gets from people, because he knows himself!!
6. In his feeling of unworthiness, he lives the life of perpetual thankfulness:
He thanks for everything, because he is convinced in his interior that he deserves nothing......and for this reason all that he obtains from God, is a blessing, whatever little it is; because he knows that he is also unworthy even of that little.
He thanks also for every kind of treatment from people. If they treat him with honor, he will thank them because they have treated him in a way of which he is unworthy. If they are unjust toward him, or if they offend him, he thanks because he receives on earth the retribution for his sins!
7. The true humble man who is aware of his sins, accepts all that arrives to him
and he says to himself: "If God treated me according to my sins, I would not be deserving to live. He sees that all the insults and the griefs which he meets, are much less than he deserves, and he accepts them with thankfulness.....
An example of this is the prophet and king David. When Schimei, son of Guerah insulted him in a painful manner, he refused that his followers would punish him, and said: "the Lord has said to him, Curse David" (2 Sam. 16:10). He considered what happened to be a natural consequence of his previous sins.
8. The humble in his contrition, constantly places his sin in front of him.
It mortifies him inwardly, and fills his eyes with tears, and adds to his contrition, and reminds him of his weekness. He never forgets his sins, although they have been forgiven and God has forgotten them for him! as David wept for his sins after they were forgiven, and said in the psalm 51: "my sin is always before me" (Ps. 51:3); and as the apostle Paul mentionned his sins and said: "For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9).
9. The humble, whatever his position has become high, constantly feels that he is lacking and negligent, and that he has not yet arrived to what he should do!
The apostle saint Paul who ascended to the third heaven (1 Cor. 12:2), who laboured more than all the apostles (1 Cor. 15:10), said: "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of ......... " (Philippians 3:12), that one for whom God feared lest he become exalted above measure because of the abundance of the revelations (2 Cor. 12:7).
The great saint Arsenius who spent all the night in prayer, and who was more than everybody, a man of solitude and silence, and whose eyelashes were falling down because of his much weeping, and whose benediction was asked by the saints, and to whom the Pope Theophilus came to ask for a useful word, ... that Arsenius did not feel that he had already begun the monachial road, but prayed saying: "Give me, O Lord, to begin"!
10. The humble person does not speak about himself in a way that brings praise to him.
It would be unreasonable to speak about situations which bring praise to himself whom he constantly reproaches and whose lackings he knows! The pharisee did not justify himself before God when he stood in the temple speaking about his virtues in his prayer to God! (Luke 18:12).
That is why I wonder when some people invite a person who has recently repented, to stand on the ambon of a church or a society, in order to tell the people about his experiences, so that they may spiritually profit from them.......! and so he stands up and speaks things about which he is praised!
11. If the conversation leads to an opportunity for being an example, the humble person will not make himself an example for others.
He says to himself: "Who am I to become an example for others?! I who fell in such and such failures!" If it is an example for repentance and return to God, ... I have not yet repented, and still I "have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting" (Dan. 5:27), and I fall every day.
12. The humble person is aware of the futility and danger of pride, and of the futility of vain glory.
What is the value of praise that comes from people?! What is its vanity and its profit! Rather how much is its harm which ruins the soul!.... All the glories of the world are vain and futile! "all is vanity and grasping for the wind" (Eccl. 1:14). Nothing from the glories is neither stable, nor perpetual, nor profitable. Nothing from it accompanies him in his eternity, or intercedes for him before God........
It is the small soul who rejoices about the admiration and praise of people.
As much as the soul becomes greater and returns to her divine image, she is absolutely not bewildered by anything from the glories of the world and from the praise of people.....especially when the words of people are the contrary of what the person knows about himself, and the contrary of what he feels inside.
13. For this reason, the humble person avoids the love of praise and dignity.
He does not desire them, and he does search for them. If praise comes to him, he does not let it descend from his ears to his heart. Inside himself he does not rejoice for it, rather he is completely aware that he is unworthy of it........ and that is why he does not believe it, or at least, he is not affected by it, whatever true it is.......
Perhaps he would make this praise, an opportunity to reproach himself, and he says in himself: "It may be that I have become an hypocrite to the point where I appear to people in a different form than my reality!
14. One of the qualities of the humble person is that he attributes all his good deeds to the grace of God.
He attributes any good thing that he does, to the favour of God. He says with the apostle saint Paul: "yet not I, but the grace of God which was in me" (1 Cor. 15:10). He remembers the word of the Lord: "without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Thus he transfers the conversation about praise, to God and to His grace and His work. If he is battled inside that he has done something, he would say to himself: "by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).
15. As much as possible he hides his justice from people:
He trains himself to the practice of virtue, in secret as much as he can. He cares for the inner virtues more than for the apparent ones. He places before him the word of the Lord about those who want to show their good deeds to people: "Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward" (Matt. 6:5).
16. He rather tries to hide his justice from himself:
according to the word of the Lord: "do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Matt. 6:3).
For example he gives without counting what he gives.......and he tries to forget all the good that he has done, so that it would not be apparent before him, and so that it would not be in his thought or his memory, and so that he would not be tempting himself. He does not consider that good as being from his own power, but rather that God has done this good by means of him, and He could have done it by means of any other than him, and in a better manner.......and he remembers his lackings in doing that good deed, and reproaches himself about them.
17. The humble person praises others and not himself:
In every successful action which he has undertaken, he mentions the part of those who have co-operated with him for the success of the work, and the importance of what the others have done, praising what they did, and forgetting himself.
Above all, he mentions the hand of God in the success of the work. Thus he hides himself so that God appears, and so that others than himself show Him.
In all his actions, he loves good for itself, not for its reward, or for the people's appreciation of him.
So, this article in no more enough to cite all the means for humility. Till another meeting in the next issue, if the grace of God wills, and we live.