Episode 1011: Litany of Humility

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved…

From the desire of being extolled…

From the desire of being honored …

From the desire of being praised …

From the desire of being preferred to others…

From the desire of being consulted …

From the desire of being approved …

From the fear of being humiliated …

From the fear of being despised…

From the fear of suffering rebukes …

From the fear of being calumniated …

From the fear of being forgotten …

From the fear of being ridiculed …

From the fear of being wronged …

From the fear of being suspected …

That others may be loved more than I…Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I …

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease …

That others may be chosen and I set aside …

That others may be praised and I unnoticed …

That others may be preferred to me in everything..

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

Amen.

What this prayer is asking is that we be delivered of all of these fears and fallen desires based on vanity, pride and inordinate self-love so that only God’s thoughts and approval matter to us.

What this litany does not mean is a notion of false humility, as the saints warn us about. False humility would mean, for example, that we purposefully fail our tests in a pretense of “humility” to be the stupidest and “last” rather than first. Or trying to purposely deny or downplay that you’re a good artist or musician. God has clearly given you that gift and talent, so use it and use it for His glory, giving your best. Or, if you want to be delivered of the fear of despised (as the litany asks), it doesn’t mean that we intentionally seek out opportunities to be despised.

Humility is a virtue that’s meant to be incredibly liberating and freeing because “humility is truth,” as St. Teresa of Avila said in her autobiography.

“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” [John 8:32]

All that matters is how we are before God. We’re not meant to be slaves to human opinions, human respect, and human approval. We’re not meant to be slaves to ourselves and our fallen desires. It’s all nothing compared to Who really matters.

In his book of meditations for the liturgical year, Divine Intimacy, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene firmly says:

Many souls would like to be humble, but few desire humiliation; many ask God to make them humble and fervently pray for this, but very few want to be humiliated. Yet it is impossible to gain humility without humiliations; for just as studying is the way to acquire knowledge, so it is by the way of humiliation that we attain to humility.

As long as we only desire this virtue of humility, but are not willing to accept the means thereto, not even are we on the true road to acquiring it. [Divine Intimacy, meditation #110]

In St. Francis de Sales’ book Introduction to the Devout Life, he notes how it is so easy to say,”Oh Lord, I am but dust and deserving of nothing” because we see our sins. As the Psalmist says…

“For my soul is bowed down to the dust; my body clings to the ground.” [Psalm 44:25]