That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
We now begin the third ascent into the Litany of Humility. In part one we beamed the light on desires or needs which deflect from what we really need, a complete and unflinching desire for unity for God. The next part challenged us to look at baseless fears. Their baselessness does not come because fear does not actually exact but because we are fearing is the loss of something valueless. We have no need of protecting ourselves from humiliation, ridicule or being forgotten. The only one whose opinion really matters would never inflict such hurt on us. We do damage to ourselves by fearing the loss of things that are not just distractions but are dangerous to us because they serve a false self which deflects us from looking toward God and the salvation of our true self.
In part three we now turn away from introspection to look outward toward others. Let's continue. The prayer asks for others to be loved, esteemed, praised and preferred over ourselves. This points toward something curious for self-centered humans to tackle, selfless love. Not only are we deny ourselves food for the ego, we are desire to give it all away. All of it.
This is not just a conceptual fantasy in which we generically endorse someone unknown to us to perhaps be granted a little something that we would not notice is missing. This is all about bowing down, staying down and offering up what we have to give. I find this to be more than a little challenging. It is one thing for me to not get something but to will my portion for the good of another is a whole other thing. If I give something away, I will never get it back. Right? Well maybe this kind of thinking misses the whole point.
Let's turn back to something I sneakily interjected just now. I said I had to be willing to will my portion for the good of another. By cleaning up the verbiage a hair we get something like this: we are called to always to will the good of another. How about yet another shot at this thought, "To love is to will the good of another." That is not from me or even from Bishop Baron whom I heard quote this precept from Thomas Aquinas recently in his podcast.
This can get a little sticky. What is meant by that? It means we have to live up to this gospel passage, Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law]tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him. "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
We now begin the third ascent into the Litany of Humility. In part one we beamed the light on desires or needs which deflect from what we really need, a complete and unflinching desire for unity for God. The next part challenged us to look at baseless fears. Their baselessness does not come because fear does not actually exact but because we are fearing is the loss of something valueless. We have no need of protecting ourselves from humiliation, ridicule or being forgotten. The only one whose opinion really matters would never inflict such hurt on us. We do damage to ourselves by fearing the loss of things that are not just distractions but are dangerous to us because they serve a false self which deflects us from looking toward God and the salvation of our true self.
In part three we now turn away from introspection to look outward toward others. Let's continue. The prayer asks for others to be loved, esteemed, praised and preferred over ourselves. This points toward something curious for self-centered humans to tackle, selfless love. Not only are we deny ourselves food for the ego, we are desire to give it all away. All of it.
This is not just a conceptual fantasy in which we generically endorse someone unknown to us to perhaps be granted a little something that we would not notice is missing. This is all about bowing down, staying down and offering up what we have to give. I find this to be more than a little challenging. It is one thing for me to not get something but to will my portion for the good of another is a whole other thing. If I give something away, I will never get it back. Right? Well maybe this kind of thinking misses the whole point.
Let's turn back to something I sneakily interjected just now. I said I had to be willing to will my portion for the good of another. By cleaning up the verbiage a hair we get something like this: we are called to always to will the good of another. How about yet another shot at this thought, "To love is to will the good of another." That is not from me or even from Bishop Baron whom I heard quote this precept from Thomas Aquinas recently in his podcast.
This can get a little sticky. What is meant by that? It means we have to live up to this gospel passage, Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law]tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him. "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
This is more than a little sticky. We are called to love out neighbor as yourself. So simple but yet so impossible. I said in part one we would talk about love at a later point. In part 4 we will do just that. Until then, Love as we have instructed. Today, tomorrow, this week, commit yourself to will the good of another through one small act of devotion that with expectation of any reward.
Yes, I have to step up right along side you.
