The Litany Of Humility

[BG45]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1316980855' post='2309953']
um....you do realize how dangerous this prayer is, right? I mean, most of the time, God doesn't gift you with an automatic gift of instant humility... He kinda uses circumstances for you to obtain it... be prepared to be humiliated...
[/quote]

Maybe I don't wanna pray it, He's been doing a good job of that anyhow...although my penance semi-recently was a prayer to the Holy Spirit that included being humbled.

[Lil Red]

i don't like it.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1316980855' post='2309953']
um....you do realize how dangerous this prayer is, right? I mean, most of the time, God doesn't gift you with an automatic gift of instant humility... He kinda uses circumstances for you to obtain it... be prepared to be humiliated...
[/quote]
This is EXACTLY why I keep telling my mom to stop praying for patience! She doesn't seem to remember that the first time she prayed for patience she got me!

[MissyP89]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1316983711' post='2310010']
i don't like it.
[/quote]

How come?

ETA: It has just occurred to me that "how come?" is a very odd phrase.

Edited September 25, 2011 by MissyP89

[Amppax]

[quote name='MissyP89' timestamp='1316986094' post='2310043']

How come?

ETA: It has just occurred to me that "how come?" is a very odd phrase.
[/quote]

It is. Try, but why?

[GeorgiiMichael]

I say this after I receive the Eucharist on Sundays. I like it a lot.

[tinytherese]

I just ask Jesus to grant me a sincere humility.

[cmaD2006]

[quote name='nunsense' timestamp='1316981023' post='2309957']


oh, I don't pray it! I just like it!
[/quote]

I used to pray it -- the 2nd community that I was in prays sections of it daily. Needless to say the prayer does work, but oh the circumstances that occured. Eek.

Needless to say I no longer pray it. For now, anyways.

Edited September 27, 2011 by cmariadiaz

[MissyP89]

You guys are really encouraging me to stick with this...

[Lil Red]

to quote from chapter 12 of the [u]Bad Catholics Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins[/u] by John Zmirak:
[quote]A Catholic shrink I once knew said he kept this prayer out of the hands of the clinically depressed; indeed, the speaker in this prayer sounds like he's already afflicted with that disease. I'd also keep it away from spouses of any kind of addict, and pretty much every teen - except for beauty queens and quarterbacks. Just reading the thing, I can feel the serotonin draining out of my head. What is more, St. Thomas teaches that it's wrong for us to practice Humility when it tempts others to sin. That means that accepting abuse and resigning yourself needlessly to suffering an injustice might, in fact, be un-Christian. Nowadays we call it 'enabling'.


To be sure, it's critical for Christians to slip the snares of Vainglory - the yearning for undeserved praise and the tendency to take personal pride in things God handed you on a silver platter. Many instances of ethnic, racial or national pride amount to one form or the other. ...

But the sentiments in the litany seem less a rejection of such nonsense than a comprehensive denial of most of the natural impulses God built into our psyche. To make this point more fully: If it's good to wish all these things for one's self, then one should equally wish them for one's children. I challenge the reader to go through the litany and substitute for "I" the words "my son" or "my daughter". Hence, "that others may be loved more than my son, Jesus grant me the grace to desire it." That kind of takes the red paint right off the Schwinn bike, now doesn't it?

Of course, there's a way to give this litany a more charitable reading, and here I think we might come upon the truth behind the holy card: In the first part of the prayer, you're asking Christ to deliver you from desire and fear - desire for good but inessential things and fear of all sorts of suffering (and suffering, in itself, is objectively evil). Now God can bring good out of evil, but that doesn't mean we should go out and canonize Judas, no matter what National Geographic says. Our Lord in Gethsemane wasn't pumped up about the prospect of His suffering. He hadn't pestered a spiritual director into letting Him volunteer to die on a cross. He sweated blood in dread of what was coming and begged the Father to spare Him. We should follow HIs example. The Church encouraged martyrs to be steadfast; she steadfastly discouraged people from seeking martyrdom. There was a whole school of heretics in the early Church called the Circumcellions, who made their name by rushing out and taunting Roman officials until they got themselves fed to the lions. Happily, this kind of heresy tends to persecute itself.
...
I think the good cardinal's litany should be reserved for future missionaries to Burma and patients with a formal diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. It's not so much a Humility nutrient as Humility chemo. [/quote]

[Lil Red]

he follows up with this activity in chapter 14:

[quote]In Chapter 12 I airily dismissed the Litany of Humility. And I really don't think it's much use in combating Vainglory - since a vain man who undertakes that prayer is all too likely to find himself preening about his newfound Humility, mouthing the prayer without really meaning it. But if you're infected with full-on Envy, such a litany might come in handy. Your task isn't simply (like the vain man's) to correct a delusional perception of your own abilities. Instead, you need to redirect your will from a deep-seated malice that aims to drag down your fellow man to suffering in this life and damnation in the next. That's a tall order, pal. Giving yourself the beat-down entailed in the Litany of Humility would make an excellent first step. Since Envy begins with invidious comparisons between your gifts or good fortune and someone else's, it might help to focus your mind not on that other's guys' merits and debits, but on your own. To address this sin more specifically, here are some affirmations you might want to write down on little fortune cookie slips and stick in your wallet, or write on Post-It Notes to place on every mirror in your house. Taken together, I have a name for them:


The Litany of Reality[list]
[*]"I do not deserve to exist." No, really. If you disagree, come up with five good reasons right now why you[i] in particular[/i] (as opposed to anyone else) had the right to be created out of nothing, maintained in existence by the incessant attention of an omnipotent deity, and protected from falling into Hell for any one of the mortal sins you've committed since the age of reason. Remember to use a number two pencil.
[*]"I didn't deserve to be born in a country with working toilets." (Assuming, of course, that you were. If you're reading this book in North Korea, please skip to the next bullet point.) The orderly, fundamentally prosperous society in which most of us live really is the sediment left behind by millions of people working hard and postponing gratification, playing by complex civic rules, and risking their lives in combat. If some of those people accumulated wealth, they did so largely by offering goods and services to their fellow citizens, who paid for the stuff because they wanted it. What private wealth some people leave to their children is nothing compared to the social health our ancestors stored up for us. We (and certainly you) did nothing to earn it. If Envy goads you to tear it down, you're acting like a spoiled kid who pees in the public pool.
[*]"I really haven't worked as hard as a lot of people." For instance, a large swathe of the folks whose possessions or achievements send you into occasional fits of resentment. If you need to, do some research on the years of schooling, arduous work schedules, and truncated personal lives that add up to wealth and advancement in our post-Edenic world. Remember all the time you spent pursuing your artsy hobbies (or playing online computer games) while the "elites" you're so angry at were spending their twenties grinding their way through WestLaw or Wharton.
[*]"God only gave me a few talents, while He gave other people more." If your answer to that stark reality is to take your meager stash and go bury it out back - for instance, by pouring your energy into Envy - remember what He has in store for you. If I might quote the Bible verse best loved by Republicans: "For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him" (Mt 25:29).
[*]"It's not up to me to judge what other people deserve. There's probably some good reason, which I'll never find out this side of the grave." On Judgment Day, those sinners who really have abused the gifts God gave them will suffer a worse fate than even you could cook up for them. How would you like to join them in the Lake of Fire? No? Then stop confession other people's sins and focus on your own.
[/list]
Believe it or not, working through this set of sobering facts will help your soul to grow, not shrink. The illusions Envy uses to prop up the ego act like crutches or leg braces on a healthy limb - they impair proper function and lead to atrophy. Once you toss them aside, like a miracle tourist at Lourdes, you'll find that the real you - the one God created and loves - will grow healthier and stronger. Pretty soon, you'll actually find yourself wishing your enemies well in the long run. Which is to say, you'll hope that they go to Heaven. As soon as possible. [/quote]

[AudreyGrace]

one of the guys households on campus sings this before every rosary...it's soooo beautiful.