|
HUMILITY
Praying
Monk, Med.illum.MS.
|
28
COME to me, all who labor and are
heavy laden, |
28
Δεῦτε πρός με πάντες οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι,
|
and I will give you rest |
κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς. |
29 Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me; |
29
ἄρατε τὸν ζυγόν μου ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς καὶ μάθετε ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ,
|
for I am gentle and
humble
in heart, |
ὅτι πραΰς εἰμι καὶ
ταπεινὸς τῇ
καρδίᾳ, |
and you will find rest for your souls. |
καὶ εὑρήσετε ἀνάπαυσιν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν· |
30 For my yoke is easy, |
30
ὁ γὰρ ζυγός μου χρηστὸς |
and my burden is light. |
καὶ τὸ φορτίον μου ἐλαφρόν ἐστιν. |
(Mat
11:28-30) |
|
|
|
|
|
PSYCHOLOGISTS
cited in a recent (October, 2019)
article in the New York Times employed the following brief definition of
humility:
HUMILITY is
a trait
characterized by
1. an ability to
accurately acknowledge one’s limitations and
abilities and
2. an
interpersonal stance that is
other-oriented rather than self-focused.
In her chapter on
humility in the Handbook of Positive Psychology
(Oxford, 2000) June Tangney lists the following key
elements:
· an
accurate assessment of one’s abilities and achievements (not low
self-esteem, self-deprecation)
· an
ability to acknowledge one’s mistakes, imperfections, gaps in knowledge, and
limitations (often vis-a`-vis a
“higher power”)
· openness
to new ideas, contradictory information, and advice
· keeping
one’s abilities and accomplishments— one’s place in the world—in perspective
(e.g., seeing oneself as just one person in the larger scheme of things)
· a
relatively low self-focus, a “forgetting of the self,” while recognizing
that one is but part of the larger universe
· an
appreciation of the value of all things, as well as the many different ways
that people and things can contribute to our world
HUMILITY_AS_VIRTUOUS_MEAN_IN_POSITIVE_PSYCH
HUMILITY
as AN
(ARISTOTELIAN)
VIRTUE
(mean
/
midpoint)
in POSITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
With regard to feelings of Self-Worth:
[vice
of]
EXCESS |
[virtuous]
MEAN |
[vice
of]
DEFICIENCY |
Narcissism |
Humility |
Low
Self-Esteem |
|
▲ |
|
Note
that in this model both false extremes (vices) render true communion, mutual
self-giving, difficult or impossible. In both narcissism and self-loathing
the soul shrinks into itself. If the soul becomes - rather than
simply indulges in - this, then this is hell, as Lewis depicts it in The Great
Divorce.
LAssus_Divine_and_Human_Humility
HUMILITY
in HUMAN
BEINGS:
AN
IMAGE
of
THE
DIVINE
HUMILITY
of THE
INCARNATE
CHRIST
Dysmas Lassus, Risques et dérives,
ch, 7, pp. 212-213
1.
THE
HUMILITY
of CHRIST
...The unsurpassable
humility of Christ has forever joined
the
infinity of God
and the
limits of the creature
DIVINITY |
INCARNATION |
HUMANITY |
Infinity of God |
Humility |
Limits of Creature |
|
▲ |
|
1.
THE
HUMAN
VIRTUE
of HUMILITY
[In us] Humility is, as it were,
suspended between
our
dignity as children of God
and the
nothingness from which we were drawn.
and
it is in Him that
we find the balance
that allows us to forget neither
our origin, since we are
“raised
from the dust”,
(Gen 2.7; 3.19)
nor our
end
which the Fathers of the Church like to call “divinization”
(Ps 82.6; Jn 10.34).
DESTINYof
THEOSIS |
BALANCED
SENSE
of SELF |
ORIGIN
as DUST |
Dignity of Divinization |
Humility |
Drawn from Nothingness |
|
▲ |
|
[potential vice
of]
EXCESS |
[virtuous]
MEAN |
[potential vice
of]
DEFICIENCY |
Humility is, as it were,
suspended between
[:] |
[1]
our
dignity as children of God
[2]
and the
nothingness from which we were drawn. |
We are not in a vacuum,
because the unsurpassable
humility of Christ has forever joined |
[1]
the
infinity of God
[2]
and the
limits of the creature |
and
it is in Him that
we find the balance
that allows us to forget neither
[:] |
[2]
our origin, since we are
“raised
from the dust”,
(Gen 2.7; 3.19)
[1]
nor our
end
which the Fathers of the Church like to call “divinization”
(Ps 82.6; Jn 10.34; ). |
HUMILITY_as_CORRECTIVE_of_ARROGANCE_LEADING_to_JUSTICE
HUMILITY
AS CORRECTIVE
Restores the
Virtue of Justice
ARROGANCE
/
HUBRIS
|
HUMILITY |
|
Prejudice |
JUSTICE |
Detachment |
|
▲ |
|
[vice
of]
EXCESS |
[virtuous]
MEAN |
[vice
of]
DEFICIENCY |
|
HUMILITY,
in ST.
BENEDICT
and in DANTE
|
|
Perhaps Benedict's
Chapter 7 on Humility, and decision to describe this as a ladder of spiritual
ascent, is best understood in light of a later depiction of spiritual progress:
namely, Dante's Divine Comedy.
Vittorio Montemaggi
invites us to a reading of Dante's Divine Comedy that discovers in the
virtue of humility the way of perfection and of salvation
(Reading Dante’s Commedia as Theology: Divinity
Realized in Human Encounter, Oxford 2016)
[The
soul] must undergo the radical decentering of self entailed by humility, whereby
one sees what is other than oneself—and ultimately God—not as something to
possess but as source of meaning and life. (p.4)
In the Commedia, that
disclosure, the deepening or transfiguration of our sense of what we are or can
be, comes about through human encounter. (Abstract,
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016)
Humility makes
possible a kind of epektasis:
We must
not be afraid of our inability fully to comprehend the divine as sometimes we
discover and reach greater depths of understanding through humility, recognizing
that we are imperfect beings who are limited in thought and action.
(p.12)
TWO
POLES of CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL ENCOUNTER with the MYSTERY of CHRIST'S HUMILITY:
Enshrined in two of the most beautiful pieces in the repetory of Gregorian
Chant:
PUER
NATUS EST - mystery of the kenotic incarnation
CHRISTUS
FACTUS EST - The salvific SELF-OBLATION (showing what it means to become a GIFT)
Death and Resurrection
Check in
Oxford Theology Online (SJS library access)
Humility,
Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory Kent Dunnington
Publisher: Oxford University Press Published in print: 2018 Published online:
February 2019
ABSTRACT
This book proposes an account of humility that relies on the most radical
Christian sayings about humility, especially those found in Augustine and the
early monastic tradition. It argues that this was the view of humility that put
Christian moral thought into decisive conflict with the best Greco-Roman moral
thought. This radical Christian account of humility has been forgotten amid
contemporary efforts to clarify and retrieve the virtue of humility for secular
life. The book shows how humility was
repurposed during the early modern era—particularly in the thought of Hobbes,
Hume, and Kant—better to serve the economic and social needs of the emerging
modern state. This repurposed humility insisted on a role for proper
pride alongside humility, as a necessary constituent of self-esteem and a
necessary motive of consistent moral action over time. Contemporary
philosophical accounts of humility continue this emphasis on proper pride as a
counterbalance to humility. By contrast, radical Christian humility proscribes
pride altogether. The book shows how such a radical view need not give rise to
vices of humility such as servility and pusillanimity, nor need such a view fall
prey to feminist critiques of humility.
But the view of humility set forth makes little sense abstracted from a specific
set of doctrinal commitments peculiar to Christianity. The book argues that this
is a strength rather than a weakness of the account since it displays how
Christianity matters for the shape of the moral life.
[On
Augustine:] "And, although Augustine describes submission to the will of God as
the evidence of humility, he does not identify submissive behavior with
humility. Augustine is clear that the difference between pride and humility is a
difference of fundamental desire: “The nub of the problem was to reject my
own will and to desire yours” (conf. 9.1.1). " (p, 40)
[[NOTE: this
links humility with renunciation of self-will and OBEDIENCE to God's will
RB prol
quisquis abrenuntians propriis voluntatibus]]
["Radical
Christian humility as "NO CONCERN":] NO CONCERN: Humility is the disposition to
have no concern to develop, clarify, attain, maintain, or safeguard an ego
ideal, because of a trust that one’s well-being is entirely secured by the care
of God (p. )
This text
apparently discusses in detail the distinction between classical and Christian
concepts of humility - perhaps this section is worth citing. Whether the
psychological redefinitions fit his paradigm of problematic "proper pride"
versus "radical Christian humility" needs reflection. He emphasizes the
need for a transcendent other; the psych, view, it is true, seems to suggest
that one's neighbor (albeit a bearer of God's image) can serve this purpose by
inspiring selfless attention to the (worth of) the other.
Perhaps what is necessary is a distinction between vertical (transcendent - awe
- fear of Lord) humility and horizontal (before the other - honore se invicem)
humility.
Is
an active, energetic, eager horizontal humility an attentiveness to the
potential for - or the ongoing process of - theosis in the other and the self/?
This links to my article on theosis and Chapter 72.
HUMILITY MAY be THE MOST DIFFICULT TRAIT for
PSYCHOLOGISTS to MEASURE:
Modesty and humility have eluded reliable
assessment, although nomination procedures have been used to identify
modest/humble paragons. (Linley
P. Alex and Joseph Stephen, Positive Psychology in Practice (John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., 2004, p. 439)
HUMILITY as a STATE from WHICH ONE IS RAISED UP ((EXALTED)
[And into which one willingly descends]
Christ - (Link with OBEDIENCE - Christ for us
became obedient unto death - even unto death on a cross, Therefore God has
exalted Him . . . )
The BLESSED VIRGIN - in the MAGNIFICAT
MONKS and NUNS in the ADMISSION to the NOVITIATE
(what do you seek . . . In the name of God ARISE)
EXAMPLE of GERTRUDE - SHE BOWS and then Sees
Christ
She is then lifted out of
tepid state ito place in choir and life of contemplation
And in the prostration at Profession - meaning of
prostration
??And in the continuing bows - prostrations during
the Liturgy of the Hours??
GREGORY THE GREAT
GREGORY
THE GREAT
Virtue of Humility discussed in article in Notre
Dame Anthology - on my Tablet
Benedict is "humiliated" - learns humility in Scene
with Scholastica [like David dancing before ark?] - THEN is enabled to
Contemplate!
PRELIMINARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Akhtar,
Silent Virtues, Patience, Curiosity, Privacy, Intimacy, Humility, and Dignity
(Routledge, NY 2019). (psychoanalysis; pt. selection,
etc.)
Alfano, M. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility
(Routledge, NY 2021)
Casey, Michael, The Art of Winning Souls:
Pastoral Care of Novices (Cistercian / Liturgical Press, 2012)
– A Guide
to Living in the Truth : Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility (Ligouri,
2001)
Csikszentmihalyi,
ed., A Life Worth Living, Contributions to Positive Psychology, (Oxford, 2006).
Compton, ed.
Positive Psychology, The Science of Happiness and Flourishing, 3rd ed., (Sage,
2020) [Sacred Emotions]
Dunnington,
Kent, Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory (Oxford, 2018)
Dysinger, Luke,
“Beholding Christ in the Other and in the Self: Deification in Benedict of
Nursia and Gregory the Great” ch. 13 in Deification in the Latin Patristic
Tradition (Studies In Early Christianity) ed. Jared Ortiz (Cath.Univ. of
America Press, 2019) pp. 253-271.
Kvanvig, Faith and Humility, (Oxford, 2018)
Macintyre, Alasdair, After Virtue, 3rd ed., (Univ. of Notre
Dame Press, 2007).
Montemaggi, Vittorio,
Reading Dante’s Commedia as Theology: Divinity
Realized in Human Encounter, (Oxford
University Press,
2016)
Tangney, June Price, “Humility,”.Handbook
of Positive Psychology, ed. C. R. Snyder & Shane J. Lopez (University Press,
2002) pp. 411-419
Tucker, Shawn R., Pride and Humility A New
Interdisciplinary Analysis (Macmillan, Palgrave, 2016).
Wood, A. & Johnson, J., ed., The Wiley Handbook
of positive Clinical Psychology, (Wiley, Blackwell, 2016).
xxxx» cont
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