4Real Forums: Humility and Humilation

Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.

Active Topics || Favorites || Member List || Search || About Us || Help || Register || Login

Domestic Church
4Real Forums : Domestic Church

Topic: Humility and Humilation

Author

Message

<< Prev Topic | Next Topic >>

Marybeth
Forum All-Star

Joined: May 02 2005
Location: Illinois
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1277

Posted: July 06 2005 at 1:48pm \| IP Logged

Could any of you wise woman please enlighten me about humility vs. humilation? I am not sure quite how to explain it. If we trip and fall and our pride is stung is that humility? Is that how God teaches us the virtue? Someone posted something regarding it on a saint website and it left me a bit confused.

Hope this post makes sense as well.

TIA!!!

Marybeth

ALmom
Forum All-Star

Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299

Posted: July 06 2005 at 6:07pm \| IP Logged

I don't know if this helps - but I have always had humility identified/defined as an honest and accurate and complete knowledge of self. It does not mean being ignorant of gifts God has given us (like Libby's music) or character strengths, etc., but it does mean being aware of our dependence on God, our own faults and weaknesses (but all in an accurate way). I think of Mother Theresa - and someone was commenting on her funeral and presuming that she would be appalled at all the pomp and circumstance. Someone who knew her very well made the comment that it wouldn't phase her one way or another. She was not unsettled or moved by either praise or criticism due to her great humility. St. Therese of Liseux is known as tremendously humble and she often suffered various humiliating criticisms in convent life (she was a child, unable to do much, didn't know how to clean properly, etc.) but she could also say on her deathbed that she would spend heaven doing good upon earth.

I suppose humiliation could be used by a Saint to develop a sense of our own limits or as a means of mortifying our desires to be praised and admired - ie adult peer pressure. Of course, imposed from outside, it can be outright cruel - but the saints used everything that happened to draw them closer to God and to become a little less attached to our their own will.

Janet

Willa
Forum All-Star

Joined: Jan 28 2005
Location: California
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3881

Posted: July 07 2005 at 10:33pm \| IP Logged

There's an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia about Humility

It quotes Thomas Aquinas:
"The spontaneous embracing of humiliations is a practice of humility not in any and every case but when it is done for a needful purpose: for humility being a virtue, does nothing indiscreetly. It is then not humility but folly to embrace any and every humiliation: but when virtue calls for a thing to be done it belongs to humility not to shrink from doing it, for instance not to refuse some mean service where charity calls upon you to help your neighbours. . . .Sometimes too, even where our own duty does not require us to embrace humiliations, it is an act of virtue to take them up in order to encourage others by our example more easily to bear what is incumbent on them: for a general will sometimes do the office of a common soldier to encourage the rest. Sometimes again we may make a virtuous use of humiliations as a medicine. Thus if anyone's mind is prone to undue self-exaltation, he may with advantage make a moderate use of humiliations, either self-imposed, or imposed by others, so as to check the elation of his spirit by putting himself on a level with the lowest class of the community in the doing of mean offices."

So from what I understand, humiliations CAN be conducive to humility, but they aren't the same as humility. Humility is a clear recognition of what one is and what one owes to God. It's usually difficult for us humans because we constantly have to fight the impression that we can take credit for all our talents and blessings.

When I trip and fall, it's humiliating, but I suppose it could lead to humility if it helps me realize I'm not quite as self-sufficient and self-possessed as I thought

__________________
AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login
If you are not already registered you must first register

[Add this topic to My Favorites]

Printable version

Forum Jump

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

Hosting and Support provided by theNetSmith.com