The scripture readings for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (October 23, 2016) warn good people of a spiritual danger.
Somewhere (I don't remember where) in John Henry Newman's writings there is a magnificent paragraph about how self confidence and humility work together.
Confidence, aka self esteem, helps us to undertake tasks when we are hesitant or afraid the we might fail. Overconfidence, on the other hand, is a danger as many athletes have learned. Overconfidence leads us to be lax in preparation and ignore help from others. The result is likely to be failure. Humility protects us by reminding us that failure is possible.
This Sunday's Gospel (Lk 18:9-14) makes this point about a Pharisee:
"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity --
greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.
If the Pharisee had simply thanked God that he was able to fast twice a week and tithe, he would have been alright. Overconfident, he compared himself to the tax collector. He, in contrast, knew he had harmed others by collecting unjust taxes. He simply asked "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." He went home justified and, presumably, with some serenity.
Last Sunday we heard about the importance of gratitude for having been healed. This Sunday we should be reminded to continue in our gratitude. We can easily begin to think that our gifts belong to us alone and give credit to ourselves. We forget, or don’t know, that our virtue is a product of circumstance and grace. We would do well to remember this line from Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
If we can find that line - and remember it - we will have the humility required to balance our confidence.
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