Meditation on Humility and Ordered Desire
Explorations of the nature of humility and its relationship to objective reality, properly ordered desire, and the magnanimous soul
I recently presented the below meditation at a men’s retreat. I have edited the document slightly for posting and reading. Please note that this is not to be treated as an exhaustive examination of these issues but rather an invitation to conversation with my fellow retreat attendees.
Introduction
When I was asked to share a meditation with you all this weekend, I had to sit back and think about what I wanted to discuss. We’re all laymen. Many of us are converts (or, not even Catholic). Many of you are fathers – several times over and years ahead of myself – and husbands. We’re also all workers of some kind or another. Some of us are entrepreneurs, professionals, laborers. And we’re all trying to live in the first and second adequations (nb: the intellect to reality and the will to the intellect).
So that’s the framework with which I’d like to approach this conversation: father, husband, and worker living the adequations. Specifically, I want to dive into a conversation on a virtue that has been on my mind since our last retreat, admittedly because I have not been great at practicing it, and is directly relevant to our liturgical celebrations this week: humility.
To better understand and frame this virtue, I want to look at the Most Humble, who was neither a father nor a husband but still provides the ultimate model of this virtue: the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Part I: Mary Most Humble
Every evening at Vespers we pray the Magnificat – the great Canticle of Mary from the Gospel of Luke during her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. And this past Tuesday, the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Assumption, commemorating Mary’s assumption into Heaven, body and soul, at the end of her earthly life.
The Gospel reading for that Solemnity is also (part of) the Magnificat. I’ve given you all a copy of the Magnificat in English and Latin.
The Church says this prayer every evening and found it important enough to include it as the Gospel reading for a major feast. At first, quick, glance, it can be easy to miss the sheer emphasis on Mary’s humility in the Magnificat in English. We tend to think of humility as a sort of meekness (although I’ll note later that these are technically different virtues), or quietness. In the Latin, though, we see the root word for humility: humilitatem, not once, but twice. Humilitatem is translated as lowly. This can be quite different than how we typically think of humility in the colloquial sense.
Pay particular attention to the beginning of the Magnificat. This relationship between humility and greatness is relevant later.
We’ll talk in the next part about the distinct nature of the virtue of humility and where it sits relative to the other virtues and how it reinforces and helps develop the other virtues. But I want to emphasize that humility as this distinctly Christian and, as displayed here, Marian, virtue is both a sort of lowliness and, incredibly important. We can get a sense of what humility is by looking at the humility of the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin Mary was closer to Christ than any other person. She carried Him in her womb, cared for Him as an infant and child, and walked alongside Him at His Passion. Even at the Annunciation she was said to be “full of Grace,” at a time when no man had grace. St. Thomas says:
So much so [was she full of grace], that whereas other Saints excelled, each in some particular virtue, the one in chastity, another in humility, another in mercy; the Blessed Virgin excelled in all, and is given as model of all.
(Aquinas, Opusculae, 8)
And elsewhere, he notes:
The Blessed Virgin Mary was the nearest possible to Christ; for from her it was that He received His human nature, and therefore she must have obtained a greater plentitude of grace from Him than all others.
(Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III.27.v)
In the list of her great virtues, the Blessed Virgin is known as “most prayerful,” “most chaste,” “most hopeful,” “most faithful,” among others. But first among these, St. Alphonsus Ligouri notes, she is “Mary most humble.”
I want to emphasize this, because this is mentioned twice in the Magnificat, and for many of the Saints and Doctors of the Church, this humility was the characteristic which made God so pleased with the Blessed Virgin and made her the Mother of God.
Let’s look at what some of the saints had to say about Mary’s humility. From St. Alphonsus Ligouri’s The Glories of Mary:
“While the king was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odour thereof.” Saint Antoninus, explaining these words [from the Canticle of Canticles], says that ‘spikenard, from its being a small and lowly herb, was a type of Mary, the sweet odour of whose humility, ascending to heaven so to say, awakened the Divine Word, reposing in the bosom of the Eternal Father, and drew Him into her virginal womb.’
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The Abbot William says, ‘He would not take flesh from her unless she gave it.’ Hence, when this humble Virgin (for so it was revealed to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary) was in her poor little cottage, sighing and beseeching God more fervently than ever, and with desires more than ever ardent, that He would send the Redeemer; behold, the Archangel Gabriel arrives, the bearer of the great message … The Lord is with thee, because thou art so humble Thou art blessed amongst women. … But what does the humble Mary reply to a salutation so full of praises? Nothing. … [but she is troubled] … Her trouble, then arose entirely from her humility, which was disturbed at the sound of praises so far exceeding her own lowly estimate of herself. Hence, the more the angel exalted her, the more she humbled herself, and entered into the consideration of her own nothingness. … She was troubled; for, being so full of humility, she abhorred every praise of herself, and her only desire was that her Creator, the giver of every good thing, should be praised and blessed. … [she told Saint Bridget:] ‘I desired not my own praise, but only that my Creator, the giver of all, should be glorified.’
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Mary already answers; she replies to the angel and says: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.” O, what more beautiful, more humble, or more prudent answer could all the wisdom of men and angels together have invented, had they reflected for a million years?
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[Saint Bernard notes,] in his four sermon on the Assumption of Mary, in which, admiring her humility, he says: ‘And how, O Lady, couldst thou unite in thy heart so humble an opinion of thyself with such great purity, with such innocence, and so great a plenitude of grace as thou didst possess?’
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[T]he higher she saw herself raised, the more she humbled herself.
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[Saint Bernard says:] ‘Though she pleased by her virginity, she conceived by her humility.’ Saint Jerome confirms this, saying that ‘God chose her to be His Mother more on account of her humility than all her other sublime virtues.’
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This she had already declared in her canticle, breathing forth the most profound humility, when she said: “Because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid … He that is mighty hath done great things to me.” On these words, Saint Lawrence Justinian remarks, that the Blessed Virgin ‘did not say, He hath regarded the virginity, or the innocence, but only the humility.’
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‘Mary’s humility,’ [Saint Augustine] says, ‘became a heavenly ladder, by which God came into the world.’
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The prophet Isaias foretold the same thing: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root” Blessed Albert the Great remarks on these words, that the Divine flower, that is to say the only-begotten Son of God, was to be born, not from the summit, nor from the trunk, of the tree of Jesse, but from the root, precisely to denote the humility of the Mother: ‘By the root humility of heart is understood.’ The abbot of Celles explains it more clearly still, saying: ‘Remark that the flower rises, not from the summit, but out of the root.’
(Ligouri, The Glories of Mary, 313-320)
And here’s St. Theresa of Calcutta on the Magnificat:
The Magnificat is Our Lady’s prayer of thanks. She can help us to love Jesus best; she is the one who can show us the shortest way to Jesus. Mary was the one whose intercession led Jesus to work the first miracle. “They have no wine,” she said to Jesus. “Do whatever he tells you,” she said to the servants. Let us go to her with great love and trust. We are serving Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.
(Theresa, Total Surrender, 102)
Mary’s humility, then, is the virtue by which she merited to become the Mother of God. Let’s look at how she, herself, saw this virtue.
St. Alphonsus says that when Mary saluted Saint Elizabeth:
“My soul doth magnify the Lord,” as if she had said: ‘Thou dost praise me, Elizabeth; but I praise the Lord, to whom alone honor is due: thou wonderest that I should come to thee, and I wonder at the Divine goodness, in which alone my spirit exults: “and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.” Thou praisest me because I have believed; I praise my God, because He hath been pleased to exalt my nothingness: “because He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid.’
(Ligouri, The Glories of Mary, 456, emphasis added)
He says elsewhere, regarding humility as the lowliness of Mary:
As a beggar, when clothed with a rich garment, which has been bestowed upon her, does not pride herself on it in the presence of the giver, but is rather humbled, being reminded thereby of her own poverty.
(Ligouri, The Glories of Mary, 455)
Mary very clearly saw herself as “lowly” – as humble! But she wasn’t obsequious. She didn’t shirk off what was asked of her, as we noted above (she said nothing). And through her humility, she bore Christ.
With the Blessed Virgin Mary as our guide and model of humility, let’s zoom out to build out our understanding of this virtue. Then, we’ll ask how we can apply it in our own lives.
Part II: The Nature of Humility
I often find it useful to start during any definition of terms to start with what something is not but may be confused as being.
Humility is not a fake lowliness, a sort of put-on show to put off praise. This is often actually a form of pride, in which one continually debases oneself below one’s state and one’s actual, objective place out of a disordered desire for praise for one’s lowliness. A man who says he is a worm or that he is “totally depraved” often works from a place either of confusion or pride, thinking he is acting on the virtue of humility. Both of these are failures of adequations to reality.
Humility is also not meekness. Christ tells us to follow him for he is meek and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29), but even here we see that he is meek and humble. Meekness restrains anger, according to Aquinas, while humility restrains pride. In a sense, these complementary virtues allow us to live out love of neighbor and God, respectively, as many virtuous actions call us to love our neighbor for the sake of God. Aquinas, again:
And that which is said: learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart? For the whole New Law consists in two things: in meekness and humility. By meekness a man is ordained to his neighbor. Hence, “O Lord, remember David and his meekness (Psalm 131.1).” By humility, he is ordained himself and to God. “Upon whom should my spirit rest, but upon him that is quiet and humble (Isaiah 66.2).”
(Aquinas, Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew)
And here’s Saint Theresa of Calcutta on the relationship between meekness and humility in this commandment of Christ:
The only thing Jesus has asked us to be is meek and humble of heart, and to do this, he has taught us to pray. He has put “meek” first. From that one word comes gentleness, thoughtfulness, simplicity, generosity, truthfulness. For whom? For one another. Jesus put “humility” after meekness. We cannot love one another unless we hear the voice of God in our hearts.
(Theresa, Total Surrender, 109-110)
Finally, humility is not opposed to magnanimity. Magnanimity is “greatness of soul,” so, it can appear that humility, or seeing oneself as lowly, as we’ve seen it put so far, would be contrary to developing a habit of reaching for greatness of soul. Aquinas explicitly refutes this claim in the Summa question on humility, but it is worth noting here - I will not put it better than Aquinas:
Humility restrains the appetite from aiming at great things against right reason: while magnanimity urges the mind to great things in accord with right reason. Hence it is clear that magnanimity is not opposed to humility: indeed they concur in this, that each is according to right reason.
(Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.II.161.ii, emphases added)
Humility helps with magnanimity, by removing the striving after those things against right reason. In fact, Aquinas says as much in the same question:
It is contrary to humility to aim at greater things through confiding in one's own powers: but to aim at greater things through confidence in God's help, is not contrary to humility; especially since the more one subjects oneself to God, the more is one exalted in God's sight. Hence Augustine says (De Virginit. xxxi): "It is one thing to raise oneself to God, and another to raise oneself up against God. He that abases himself before Him, him He raiseth up; he that raises himself up against Him, him He casteth down."
(ibid., emphases added)
From this picture of dispelling what humility is not, we begin to see the picture of what it is, then. Humility is a virtue that helps us see ourselves as how we really are, especially with respect to God and the spiritual life. And we are lowly. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the most exalted of all creatures and even she is infinitely lowly in comparison to God. St. Bernard defines humility as, "A virtue by which a man knowing himself as he truly is, abases himself." We then correct our desires for the right things.
In other words, it consists in 1) seeing one’s place, especially relative to God and reality, correctly; and 2) abasing oneself upon that. This abasement removes the vice of pride, which is a roadblock to the spiritual life. Humility, then, is a virtue that moderates between the vices of pride (mind not adequated to reality) and too-great obsequiousness (mind not adequated to reality).
We can both be humble and live out the commandment to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” This is where we revisit magnanimous action. You can both be humble with respect to your estimation of yourself in the world and magnanimous in your greatness of soul.
Let us revisit the Magnificat: while we often pray it as “my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,” it can be translated as, “my soul magnifies the greatness of the Lord.” The magnanimous soul, through its great actions, magnifies God. The Blessed Virgin Mary, through her humility, magnifies God.
Humility, however, is not, contrary to what we may think after hearing of the Glories of Mary, the greatest or first of the virtues. In fact, it is a part of one of the cardinal virtues - temperance, that regulation of the concupiscible appetite. This is where our desires lie. So, by developing the virtue of humility, we properly order our desires to reality. In other words, humility, properly understood, is a function of a proper understanding of objective reality and a regulation of the desires in consequence of that. If you read the Litany of Humility, for example, the petitions are for proper desires.
Humility helps us see that what we desire without God, and without right reason, should not be pursued and instead orient our lives and our minds towards right action, especially right action in God.
To illustrate this point and to make another: humility is a radical virtue. It doesn’t really exist as a virtue before Christ. Indeed, we can imagine a pagan who is proud – he possesses all the other natural virtues – but we could never see him as a good man in any supernatural sense. His desires – for power, for the flesh, for status, for money, etc. – are disordered. He lacks a proper relationship to objective reality and, therefore, the requisite virtue for the supernatural life. “God resisteth the proud, and giveth his grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
Humility, is a uniquely Christian virtue that helps us see ourselves as we really are, to orient ourselves towards good action after seeing ourselves as we really are, and to seek God in what we do. It allows us to honestly say, like the Psalmist, “O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me,” and to enter into the supernatural life.
St. Benedict wrote of humility and developed twelve degrees of humility in his Rule. I’ve included it on the back of your handout with the Magnificat, as well as St. Thomas’ inversion of it from his section on humility in the Summa (II.II.161).
While St. Benedict lists the degrees as extending from God’s grace – an inward starting place – St. Thomas recognized that we can also develop virtue hand-in-hand with supernatural grace through action, so we can invert the steps from action first to inward state.
Let’s take a look at them.
(Adapted from Vost, K. Humble Strength, 2022. Ascension Publishing Group)
We can see that for St. Benedict, we start with Fear of God and end with humility in the heart and eyes.
For St. Thomas, this is inverted, as starting with humility in heart and eyes is the first step towards man’s development of the virtue through illumination of the intellect and controlling the will. Both, though, end up with the same steps, just developed through different routes (one through a grace, the other through the will).
So, with that, I’d like to extend this framework to our three roles: father, husband, and worker, and pull a bit on some insight of other Saints.
Part III: Application of Humility
Again, humility in particular is a radical virtue. You will find it in Christian saints but not in the heroes of the classical era. In fact, one of the reasons I felt the call to focus our conversation on humility is that with the further breakdown of right reason and the adequation of the mind to reality, we are seeing a resurgence of an outright rejection of humility. Across popular culture, we see fewer and fewer heroes upheld for their humility. Leaders are selected not for their humility but for their brashness. Young men regularly feed their minds on vicious male role models who reject a slew of virtues but most especially the virtue of humility.
So, with that in mind, let’s turn to practical applications in developing and teaching this virtue. Three quick thoughts.
Humble Father
We are fathers not to whet our own appetites or to take pride in raising children, and certainly not for economic reasons to make light work with many hands, but instead to “be fruitful and multiply.” Our goal as fathers should be to raise good children of high character. St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 that fathers are to bring up their children “in discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Saint John Chrysostom notes that this is not mere knowledge but rather character and wisdom. With that, we can understand our task as fathers: we are to develop our children in the Lord by helping them to develop wisdom and character.
Last year, it was noted that we don’t want to start with catechesis first but rather a way of life, the development of the virtues. We can easily imagine somebody who has memorized the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church but is a bad person. This aligns closely with the teachings of James Stenson, the founder of the Heights School outside of DC and author of numerous books on parenting. Stenson tells us that it is character that builds the foundation for a life of supernatural love. This is what stays with them over time and upon which they can think and act in their vocations as they grow up out of our houses.
How, then, do children develop character? Stenson repeats throughout his writing, “Children develop character by what they see, by what they hear, and by what they are repeatedly led to do.”
This, I believe, brings us back to our virtue of humility. By seeing ourselves as we really are and ascribing all of our good qualities to the grace of God, we can then properly act in a way that models various other virtues for our children. Just how humility lays the groundwork for magnanimity to bring us to great action, humility can lay the groundwork for us to live out other virtues as examples and models to our children.
St. Alphonsus Ligouri recounts a story of how humility can lead to little actions – in this case, in the life of a priest, but we can apply it to our lives as well:
Marinus, or Martin d’Alberto, of the Society of Jesus, used to sweep the house and collect the filth through love for this Blessed Virgin. The Divine Mother one day appeared to him … and thanking him, as it were, said, ‘O, how pleasing to me, is this humble action, done for my love!’
(Ligouri, The Glories of Mary, 459)
We can extend this to what children hear, and as they get older, to what they do.
I do think Stenson throws out an important note regarding television (and I would say, the Internet, now). Media in the home are a competitor or rival for attention and modeling to the children and against the parents. You can apply the “see, hear, do,” framework not just to your actions – how they see you help around the house, interact with your wife, engage in work, etc. – but also to any other media you bring into the home.
This is where I think humility as a virtue specifically becomes even more important. It’s no shocker to claim that popular culture has degraded humility for decades – but with the rise of a specifically anti-Christian popular culture, especially online with everything from neopaganism to pornography becoming more and more accessible to children and covered with a veil of “virtue,” this virtue becomes more and more foreign to those who do not see it modeled in the home.
A simple suggestion for modeling humility in the home, which I believe helps specifically for children seeing humility as the gateway to the supernatural life, is the inclusion of Liturgy of the Hours among the family. Your children see, hear, and eventually do, daily prayers, time taken out specifically to honor God, and to do it in a disciplined way. Another benefit of these prayers is that they are not solely petitionary prayer, so it helps acquaint children with other types and ends of prayer.
Humble Husband
To be a humble husband is to see oneself as he really is – the spiritual head of the family and the household – but to then abase oneself. There are two excerpts from St. John Chrysostom which I would like to read at length for framing thinking of being a humble husband – the man placed at the head of the wife to lead her just as Christ is the head of the body, the Church.
First, Chrysostom on what we can offer:
For see how great a service the wife contributes. She keeps the house, and takes care of all things in the house, she presides over her handmaids, she clothes them with her own hands, she causes you to be called the father of children, she delivers you from brothels, she aids you to live chastely, she puts a stop to the strong desire of nature. And do thou also benefit her. How? In spiritual things stretch forth your hand. Whatever useful things you have heard, these, like the swallows, bearing off in your mouth, carry away and place them in the mouth of the mother and the young ones. For how is it not absurd in other things to think yourself worthy of the preeminence, and to occupy the place of the head, but in teaching to quit your station. The ruler ought not to excel the ruled in honors so much as in virtues. For this is the duty of a ruler, for the other is the part of the ruled, but this is the achievement of the ruler himself. If you enjoy much honor, it is nothing to you, for you received it from others. If you shine in much virtue, this is all your own.
You are the head of the woman, let then the head regulate the rest of the body. Do you not see that it is not so much above the rest of the body in situation as in forethought, directing like a steersman the whole of it? For in the head are the eyes both of the body, and of the soul. Hence flows to them both the faculty of seeing, and the power of directing. And the rest of the body is appointed for service, but this is set to command. All the senses have thence their origin and their source. Thence are sent forth the organs of speech, the power of seeing, and of smelling, and all touch. For thence is derived the root of the nerves and of the bones. Do you see not that it is superior in forethought more than in honor?
So let us rule the women; let us surpass them, not by seeking greater honor from them, but by their being more benefited by us. I have shown that they afford us no little benefit, but if we are willing to make them a return in spiritual things, we surpass them. For it is not possible in bodily things to offer an equivalent. For what? Do you contribute much wealth? But it is she who preserves it, and this care of hers is an equivalent, and thus there is need of her, because many, who had great possessions, have lost all because they had not one to take care of them. But as for the children, you both communicate, and the benefit from each is equal. She indeed in these things rather has the more laborious service, always bearing the offspring, and being afflicted with the pains of childbirth; so that in spiritual things only will you be able to surpass her.
(Chrysostom, “Homily 5 on Second Thessalonians,” via New Polity 4.2, emphases added)
And elsewhere, Chrysostom addresses the complaints of men who say their wives don’t respect them or that they don’t allow themselves to be ruled:
For the man who loves his wife, even though she be not a very obedient one, still will bear with everything. So difficult and impracticable is unanimity, where persons are not bound together by that love which is founded in supreme authority; at all events, fear will not necessarily effect this. Accordingly, he dwells the more upon this, which is the strong tie. And the wife though seeming to be the loser in that she was charged to fear, is the gainer, because the principal duty, love, is charged upon the husband. But what, one may say, if a wife reverence me not? Never mind, you are to love, fulfill your own duty. For though that which is due from others may not follow, we ought of course to do our duty. This is an example of what I mean. He says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. And what then if another submit not himself? Still obey thou the law of God. Just so, I say, is it also here. Let the wife at least, though she be not loved, still reverence notwithstanding, that nothing may lie at her door; and let the husband, though his wife reverence him not, still show her love notwithstanding, that he himself be not wanting in any point. For each has received his own.
(Chrysostom, “Homily 20 on Ephesians,” emphases added)
“Fulfill your own duty.” Strong words from Chrysostom. The commandment to fulfill the duty here is not necessarily out of a duty to the wife, but is from “fear of Christ.” Recall the first step of St. Benedict’s levels of humility.
Humble Worker
Finally, we turn to humility in work. The most obvious application here is that from St. Benedict: “submit to a superior.” This does not simply mean listening to those who are higher than you, but brings with it no grumbling as well. In the 34th chapter of the Rule:
Above all, let not the evil of murmuring appear for any reason whatsoever in the least word or sign. If any one is caught at it, let him be placed under very severe discipline. (Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict, section 34)
So we are talking about not simply doing the work, but doing the work and not complaining. All of us here are competent workers, I take it, and many of us are ascendant in our careers. How can we maintain humility while also recognizing the skills that have developed in our persons?
I think a skilled superior, degree 3 of Benedict’s 12 degrees, is particularly helpful here. Both a spiritual director who understands your work well enough to advise living an integrated life in that work – not compartmentalizing being Catholic, as well as working with and under somebody who is significantly more skilled than oneself to develop your skills in that work.
How else could we apply the Rule in our work?
We also must recognize work, and laboring in our work, as a good thing. Working well is part of humbly submitting to God. We are not transhumanists. We do not strive for the day where there is no work. Pope St. John Paul II in Laborem Exercens:
The Church finds in the very first pages of the Book of Genesis the source of her conviction that work is a fundamental dimension of human existence on earth. An analysis of these texts makes us aware that they express-sometimes in an archaic way of manifesting thought-the fundamental truths about man, in the context of the mystery of creation itself. These truths are decisive for man from the very beginning, and at the same time they trace out the main lines of his earthly existence, both in the state of original justice and also after the breaking, caused by sin, of the Creator's original covenant with creation in man. When man, who had been created "in the image of God.... male and female", hears the words: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”, even though these words do not refer directly and explicitly to work, beyond any doubt they indirectly indicate it as an activity for man to carry out in the world. Indeed, they show its very deepest essence. Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate, the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe.
(John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 4, emphases added)
With these thoughts, I’d like to invite you to a conversation on developing and living out the virtue of humility. How do we adequately take stock of ourselves, our place – especially in the spiritual life – and then bring ourselves low? How do we model this virtue for our children? For our spouses? Our colleagues?