Homily: Tuesday of the 2nd Week of Lent: Whoever humbles himself...

St. Theresa of Avila, great mystic and doctor of the Church said, “The foundation of the entire edifice of prayer is humility.  Nothing matters more than humility.” 

The saints stress humility so often because Our Lord stressed humility so often. 

The Lenten journey is one of humility.  We began Lent with an act of humility, sprinkling our foreheads with ashes while hearing the words, “Remember man, you are dust, and to dust you will return.”  We were reminded by those ashes that we are mortal, that we are sinful, that we are in need of God.

And that is humbling isn’t it?  Because we have a tendency to forget those things, we have the tendency to live as if we don’t need God, that we are entitled to eternal life in heaven.

Humility is the virtue which combats the deadly sin of pride.  Pride, said St. Bernard, is the chief of all iniquities because it makes us treat God’s gifts as if they were rightful attributes of our nature, and thereby robs God of his due glory.

The three Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving combat pride in our souls.  Each of these practices takes us out of the realm of self-concern and self-interest and moves us into concern for our neighbor and the right worship of God.

Where the pride hardens the heart against spiritual things, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving till the soil of the soul so that it can rightly accept God’s word and God’s grace. We will never advance in the spiritual life, in sanctity, without humility, and lots of it. 

I think of that wonderful gestures of beating one’s beating of the breast during the Confiteor, “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grevious fault”.  One priest wrote: “To strike the breast is to beat against the gates of our inner world in order to shatter them.  The blow also is to wake us up. It is to shake the soul awake into the consciousness that God is calling.” 

God is calling us this Lent to turn away from our failure to trust Him, that we may grow in grace and holiness for His glory and the salvation of souls.