Yesterday's Faith is Not Enough: How We Can Overcome Pride

We can so easily move from being men and women walking in the freedom of the truth which comes through living faith - to becoming men and women who once believed in Him. All it takes is succumbing to this kind of sinful pride. We become spiritually blinded, lose our freedom and soon fail to recognize the Lord in our own lives.

Jesus continued to do what the Father had sent Him to do, in spite of opposition from apparently religious people. We are invited to follow his example. He will give us the grace to do so, if we ask Him. St Josemaria Escriva used a phrase to refer to the kind of opposition which we can receive from those who should be supporting our efforts. He called this kind of difficulty - opposition from the good. (The Forge, #804) The lives of the Saints show us that, among the scars left from the wounds borne for fidelity, it is those scars caused by this kind of -opposition from the good- which can leave the deepest mark in a Christian; either for good or for bad. 

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - In the Gospels we are presented with the behavior of the Pharisees - as a warning. Pope Francis regularly points to the dangers of slipping into our own version of what might be called Pharisee-ism.

These Gospel reminders - and the emphasis by the successor of Peter- can help to unveil a hidden and corrosive form of pride which is often hidden in our own lives.

This is a form of pride which we easily slip into - when we take our eyes off of who Jesus is - and who we are called to become as we live our lives in Him.

There is a line from one of those encounters in the Gospel of St Matthew which leaps off the page every time I read it. 

"But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him." (Mt. 12:14)

The response of Jesus to the actions of the Pharisees is found in the next verse. It points us to how we can learn to respond when faced with opposition, even from seemingly religious or good people.

"When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them." (Matt 12:15)

Jesus simply continued living out his vocation. He did not become distracted.

Sadly, this is not usually our response when we face hostility from those who should be affirming our efforts to serve the Lord. Especially when some of these very people openly oppose us.

And, we all know this can happen.

Jesus continued to do what the Father had sent Him to do, in spite of opposition from apparently religious people. We are invited to follow his example. He will give us the grace to do so, if we ask Him.

St Josemaria Escriva used a phrase to refer to the kind of opposition which we can receive from those who should be supporting our efforts. He called this kind of difficulty, "opposition from the good." (The Forge, #804)

The lives of the Saints show us that, among the scars left from the wounds borne for fidelity, it is those scars caused by this kind of "opposition from the good" which can leave the deepest mark in a Christian; either for good or for bad. 

They can also bear the most good fruit- if they are embraced in the love of the Savior and offered back to Him in love.  They can be joined to His wounds - and have amazing effect.

Or, they can leave us bitter. They can become infected by pride and lead us off the way of holiness - and fidelity to our own vocation. 

As I have grown older, I have come to understand this truth more fully. I have a long way to go in living it. I bear many scars. I must admit, many of them came from those whom I thought were "brothers and sisters in the Lord".

I have learned much in the field of battle called daily Christian living - by living out my vocation. One thing I now know with deep conviction is that yesterday's faith is never enough.  

My wife and I have five children. All of our children are now "grown-up", to use a shallow euphemism. I reminded them throughout those years of being "raised" in our home that time can either become a tyrant or a tutor in our lives.

The choice is ours.

The scars to which I just referred have now become my own tutors. Many were caused by this opposition from the good which Saint Josemaria referred to. 

Those who "conspired against him, how to destroy him" were blinded by their own pride.

Yet, we find Love Incarnate, Jesus Christ, forgiving them from the Altar of the Cross.

Further, we find that in the mystery of God's Loving plan, even this opposition from the good participated in the redemptive mission of Jesus.

So, what can we learn from this to apply in our own lives?

We should examine ourselves today and ask ourselves -how we are doing?

Where is the sin of pride rearing its ugly head in our own lives? 

How are we responding to those who, though they should be supporting us, wrongly oppose us?

Where is the sin of pride lurking in our lives?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns, "Hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments." (CCC#2094)

What happened to those men referred to in the Gospel text which I began this article referring to?

How did they become this way?

After all, some of them had once listened to His teaching. Many extolled His wonderful works. Many had once believed in Him. Now, they counsel together to destroy Him.

How could such a thing happen?

Gradually.

Can it happen to you and me?

Yes, it can.

As I reflect on Gospel accounts like this one in St Matthew's account, I am reminded of my proclivity to such fickle behavior. Without the grace of God, I can all too easily become blinded by my own sinful pride.

I can begin to live like one who had once believed in Him - instead of one who DOES believe in Him, right now. This happens whenever we grow apart from His living presence.

Yesterday's relationship with the Lord is not sufficient for today.

Yesterday's prayer cannot keep me in the presence of the Lord today. I need to cultivate an ongoing relationship with the Lord if I hope to see clearly with the eyes of living faith. I need to regularly and continually talk to Him.

For the Christian, this means learning to live in prayer.

Prayer is about an ongoing encounter with the Lord. It is about living in Him - and welcoming Him to live in us. Prayer helps us to see ourselves clearly and to recognize our continual need for repentance.

Prayer draws us into an experience of transforming grace which can -and will - change us.

Olivier Clement, a lay orthodox theologian, explains in his excellent resource book entitled The Roots of Christian Mysticism, Texts from Patristic Era with Commentary that prayer is not something we do - but Some - One whom we encounter.

"It is Some-One who comes to us in the sovereign freedom of His love. Grace does not come to order. We can only prepare ourselves to receive it, making ourselves attentive to the possibility of a meeting."

We need to pray every day. We need to pray throughout the whole day. That is - if we hope to stay in touch with this Some-One.

Yesterday's Faith is Not Enough

Without this kind of prayer and living faith, our capacity to exercise our freedom rightly, to choose what it good and what is true, will begin to suffer.

We will become influenced once again by what the Apostle Paul called the "law of sin and death" (Romans 7:35) and begin to view the world, ourselves, and the Lord, in a distorted manner.

The lens of living faith can be replaced by the lens of pride.  In that experience, our freedom is fractured.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains "In man, true freedom is an "outstanding manifestation of the divine image". (CCC #212) 

Our choices not only change the world around us - they change us. What we choose either humanizes us further or leads us, ultimately, into slavery.

Saint Gregory in one of his homilies cited in the Catechism opined, "Now, human life is always subject to change: it needs to be born ever anew. But here birth does not come about by a foreign intervention, as is the case with bodily beings, it is the result of a free choice. Thus we are in a certain way our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our decisions."

The Catechism also explains "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin." (CCC #1734)

It cites the Apostle Paul's use of that phrase "slavery of sin" in his letter to the Romans. (Romans 6:17)

That same Apostle reminds us that "it was for freedom that Christ set us free". (Gal. 5:1)

We can so easily move from being men and women walking in the freedom of the truth which comes through living faith - to becoming men and women who once believed in Him.

All it takes is succumbing to this kind of sinful pride.

We become spiritually blinded, lose our freedom and soon fail to recognize the Lord in our own lives.

We can even end up "conspiring to destroy Him" - at least figuratively.

Olivier Clement's invitation to "prepare ourselves for the possibility of a meeting" requires that we learn to silence the clamor of the age, stop the ever accelerating pace of the futile quests that so often occupy our hearts, and live in the eternal now by surrendering ourselves - and even our best aspirations- to the One who created us -and now re-creates us- in His Son Jesus Christ.

It is there, in the emptied place, in the stillness of the eternal now, in our heart, the center of our moral personality, where we prepare a room for the King of all hearts. (See, CCC #2517)

And, in this encounter, we find the longing of our heart fulfilled. Grace is freely given, lavished  upon those who learn to live in God and live as though God lives in them.

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Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. A married Roman Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, he and his wife Laurine have five grown children and six grandchildren, He serves as the Director of Adult Faith Formation at St. Stephen, Martyr Parish in Chesapeake, VA. He is also a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith, values and culture.He was recently appointed Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel.

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