Pride

The Reservoir of All Sin

"The Devil, the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked." - St. Thomas
More, 16th Century
"God is stern in dealing with the arrogant, but to the humble He shows
kindness." - Proverbs 3:34
"Hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to the love of God ..." -
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2094
Overweening pride, arrogance, haughtiness: these have been the stuff of
tragedy. Vanity, fussiness, delicacy: the stuff of comedy. These are all
forms of self-delusion, and paper-thin masks over rotting features. Pride
and vanity refuse the truth about who we are and substitute illusions for
reality. While vanity is mostly concerned with appearance, pride is based in
a real desire to be God, at least in one's own circle.
The first requirement of pride is spiritual blindness. Any glimpse of God
reveals our frailty and sinfulness, just as a well-lit bathroom mirror shows
the flaws in our complexion. Like Oedipus, we are driven to gouge out our
eyes at the sight of our wretchedness and wander away from our heavenly
home, with no purpose or direction. Unlike Oedipus, we build up myriad
illusions about who we are and what we are about. We can busy ourselves with
career, family and even church work, thinking we are being driven by a
strong work ethic, moral values or the fire of the Holy Spirit. In reality,
we may be running away from God by running away from ourselves. Nearly
everyone else can see that we are putting on a show, but not us. Our
coworkers may hate us (they are just jealous), our children may
self-destruct or leave us (they are ungrateful), and we may never truly pray
but merely stand in the presence of a god we have created, but we still
refuse to see.
A second requirement of pride, indeed a symptom, is that each challenge to
our pride drives us harder to improve our illusion of productivity, sanctity
or compassion. It has been said that the definition of a zealot is "one who
has lost sight of his goal, and so redoubles his efforts." We might say the
zealot works twice as hard to keep up appearances.
When we hear sermons about pride, or read this text, we may be tempted to
think of all the people we know who really need to read it. We need to read
it. Pride is about us, and we would love to retain our illusions by pointing
to others, saying: "But they are very proud. I really don't think I'm that
great, but they do."
The best pride detector is this: how much are we bothered by the pride of
others? And if we feel attacked, is our response: "other people are worse."
A strong indicator of pride is competitiveness. There is nothing wrong with
playing to win, provided the joy is in the playing. If our happiness depends
on defeating others or knowing our child is the star of the team, we are
building a world of illusion.
At death, all illusions are stripped away. God's judgment will not take into
account our bank balance, how much we own, how smart our children are or how
much self-esteem we have. All that will matter is whether He recognizes us
(Matthew 25:12).
There are three ways to destroy Pride, and they must all be taken together:
1) Be grateful to anyone and everyone. Treat even the things people are
expected to do as great gifts. Be grateful for your food, your change at
Burger King, rain, life itself. Thank everyone.
2) Beg forgiveness of God for the sin of Pride. Go before Him in prayer
every day or every few hours and implore His mercy. The more this offends
you, the more Pride you have.
3) Ask God for a spirit of Humility and Gratitude. Read Philippians 2:3-11
and imitate it. Understand that without God's Grace, we will never cast away
our illusions. Ask God to break your pride and vanity using whatever it
takes: illness, loss of friends, loss of family, public humiliation. This is
unbelievably difficult to request, and every fiber of our being fights it.
We protest it is not fair, or "God doesn't work that way." My friend, what
good is health, friends, family, a good reputation, if you have no real love
for God, but only a hollow illusion? In the end, all but true love for God
is lost, so count all else but God as loss now.
For continued reading, the following are a few good books:
"Mere Christianity," by C.S. Lewis
"New Seeds of Contemplation," by Thomas Merton
"The Cost of Discipleship," by Dietrich Bonhoeffer