While I was walking back home today, it stuck me in a new way why humility is such an important virtue and why pride is such a deadly vice. It's a simple as this: all the greatest things in life are gifts. Without much qualification one could say that all things, including life itself, are gifts. Not only does grace perfect nature, but nature itself is gratuitous. Humility recognizes this and experiences everything as a gift. Pride does not. The prideful person sees himself primarily as a giver rather than as a receiver. The guy who thinks he is God's greatest gift to women would do well to think rather on how women are God's gift to him. The truest friendships have made me feel humbled and completely unworthy.
Here's the summary:
The world is pure gift.
Humility experiences world as pure gift.
Pride thinks it has more to give than to receive.
Thus, humility is the attitude which is properly oriented toward reality.
Every time I take a walk out in nature, I am humbled by the beauty of our Lord's creations and I am reminded that I too am a creature of the greatest creator.
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