Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo guides readers to examine their hearts for pride and self-delight, showing that true humility begins with seeing oneself honestly. By rejecting worldly honor, self-esteem, and false virtue, we cultivate interior humility and align our hearts with God’s truth. Humility frees the soul from vanity and self-deception.
Interior Contempt of Oneself
RICHARD of St. Victor defines humility as the interior contempt of oneself. Examine a little whether you have this feeling toward yourself. When you have dreams of dignity and honor and you imagine yourself in the midst of grandeur and chimerical honors, how do you behave in these proud and vain imaginings? Do you rejoice and delight in them, desiring to dwell in them more and more? If we love humility, we must treat these dreams of worldly ambition and pride with disdain and hatred, just as those who love chastity treat impure thoughts. We ought to pray thus with King David: “Let not the foot of pride come unto me,” (Ps. 35:12), because pride first enters into the soul through the thoughts of the mind, and he who accustoms himself to delight in these thoughts has already formed in his heart the bad habit of pride.
Let No Man Glory in Himself
Do you forget your own nothingness? Have you any self-esteem? If such be the case, you are a seducer, a deceiver of your own self, because, as St. Paul says, “For if any man think himself to be some thing, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” (Gal. 6:3). Do you delight and glory in your knowledge, your power, your riches, or in some other gift, natural or moral? Remember the word God spoke by the Prophet Jeremias: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches.” (Jer. 9:23). And again, that spoken of by St. Paul: “We ought not to please ourselves.” (Rom. 15:1).
This delight and glory insinuates itself insensibly, but he who is humble notices it quickly and repels it as being nothing but vanity and only puffing up and filling the heart with pride.
In the same way with the spiritual life, do you think yourself virtuous because you sometimes do a little good? You would do well then not to regard yourself as good, but to imagine yourself in Jerusalem, repudiated by God, because, as the prophet said, thou art “trusting in thy beauty.” (Ezech. 16:15). And St. Gregory says of such as you: “The soul hath confidence in its beauty when it takes some good action upon itself.”
The proud man dwells more willingly on the little good he does, on the little devotion he feels, than on the thought of the evil he has committed and which he does daily. He puts behind him the multitude of his sins, so that he need not be ashamed and humble himself; and he reflects often upon certain of his minute exercises of Christian piety, so as to indulge his self-complacency. As St. Gregory says: “It is easier for them to see within themselves that which is pleasing to them than that which is displeasing.” Perhaps you also have this tendency.
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This article is taken from a chapter in Humility of Heart by Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo which is available from TAN Books.
