List of points

'God resists the proud, but gives his grace to the humble,' the apostle St Peter teaches. In any age, in any human setting, there is no other way, to live a godly life, than that of humility. Does this mean that God takes pleasure in our humiliation? Not at all. What would he, who created all things and governs them and maintains them in existence, gain from our prostration? God only wants us to be humble and to empty ourselves, so that he can fill us. He wants us not to put obstacles in his way so that — humanly speaking — there will be more room for his grace in our poor hearts. For the God who inspires us to be humble is the same God who 'will refashion the body of our lowliness, conforming it to the body of his glory, by exerting the power by which he is able also to subject all things to himself'. Our Lord makes us his own, he makes us divine with a 'true godliness'.

What is it that impedes this humility, this 'true godliness'? It is pride. Pride is the capital sin that leads to 'false godliness'. Pride encourages one, even perhaps in very trivial matters, to follow the subtle prompting which Satan made to our first parents: 'your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil'. Elsewhere in the Scriptures we read that 'the beginning of the pride of man is to draw away from God'. Indeed this vice, once it has taken root, infects a man's entire way of life, until it becomes what St John calls superbia vitae, the pride of life.

Pride? About what? Sacred Scripture finds both tragic and comic expressions to stigmatise pride: Why are you so proud, you who are but dust and ashes? Even in life, you are vomiting your entrails. A slight illness: the doctor smiles. The king that reigns today will be dead tomorrow.