Grace and Humility

Our parable in this Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 18:9-14) is a very familiar story. St. Luke tells us, “Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else" (Luke 18:1).

The word used for ‘convinced’ means to believe in something to the extent of placing reliance or trust on it. In this case, Jesus addresses religious people who are not trusting in God, but in themselves or their own righteousness.

This misplaced trust leads to negative behaviors. They “despised everyone else” (Luke 18:1). Despising others means to regard others as being below you and therefore worthy of maltreatment or contempt. Contempt is very corrosive in human relationships, and is damaging both to others and to our soul. Quoting St. Augustine, the Catechism reminds us, “Sin is thus ‘love of oneself even to contempt of God.’” (CCC 1850).

Jesus’ parable introduces a contrast between a certain Pharisee and a tax collector. One of the reasons we do “not to judge others” is that we do not know their hearts. Yet it is difficult to hear the words of the Pharisee in this parable without seeing his heart. He prays, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity” He lists their sins and then looks down on the tax collector. The Pharisee clearly trusts in his own righteousness and regards the tax collector with contempt (Luke 18:1).

By way of contrast, the tax collector “stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner' (Luke 18:13). Jesus tells us the tax collector went home justified and not the Pharisee, “for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:13).

Jesus’ parable highlights the fundamental importance of the virtue of humility for our relationship with God and ultimately for our very salvation. This is because we must exercise what the Bible calls “the obedience of faith” to enter into a relationship with God. The proper response of man to God’s revelation, aided by the interior movement of the Spirit, is obedience of faith (Romans 1:5; 6:17, 16:25–26, Acts 6:7).

The fathers of Second Vatican Council describe this obedience as “a commitment by which we offer the whole self freely to God, and by which we offer the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals” (Dei Verbum, 5). Submitting ourselves to God requires humility.

Unfortunately, some religious people understand their faith as a kind of ‘scorecard’ or heavenly ‘report card’. They list off all the good things they have done, and have confidence in these good works rather than in God. They are not trying to show their love and gratitude to God through their good works, but to manipulate or bargain with God to force his favor towards them.

They fail to acknowledge that the source of all our excellence and glory is God. We have received everything as a gift, even life itself. The essence of true humility is docility and the subjection of our will to divine Providence. It fundamentally involves a type of self-knowledge. As St. Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me” (RSVCE, 1 Corinthians 15:10). St. Paul acknowledges that everything he is comes from God’s grace.

We are each saved, not by bargaining with God through our works (Ephesians 2:8-9), but by the grace and mercy of God. The tax collector, is aware of his shortcomings, and yet prays, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner' (Luke 18:13). Jesus tells us that he is the one who receives salvation.

Trusting in our own righteousness is the sin of presumption against the virtue of hope. The person who commits this sin “presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high)” (CCC 2092).

If you are like me, I think you would assume that you are not like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable. After all, I do not come to church and publically boast about my righteousness in my prayers and treat others with open contempt.

Yet, could we still be subtly embracing these attitudes?

Many Catholics, when asked, “If you died and came to the gates of heaven and they asked you why you should get in?” would answer, “Because I think I am a pretty good person.” On the surface, by the way, this is an alarmingly bad answer! To be charitable, perhaps they have in mind the evidence of the fruit of God’s grace in their life. Perhaps they mean, “I am still in a state of grace, and the fruit of my life demonstrates this.”

Yet, could we still be subtly trusting in our own righteousness? We should choose to live a good life in gratitude and out of love for God. Yet we each receive forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Receiving this forgiveness, however, implies I have cooperated with the graces of my Baptism by submitting my heart, indeed my entire life to God, and that I am actively striving to live in an ongoing relationship with him. This is what it means to have the fruit of God’s grace in our life. This grace begins with humility!

As we contemplate these truths anew, let us pray with St. Augustine,

Let me know you, O you who know me;

then shall I know even as I am known.

You are the strength of my soul;

make your way in and shape it to yourself,

that it may be yours to have and to hold,

free from stain or wrinkle”

(St. Augustine, Confessions 10.1.1)[i]

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[i] Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Part I, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Maria Boulding, Second Edition, vol. 1, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2012), 237.