Faith, Pride, Humility, and Trust
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| (Mother and Child by Laura Muntz Lyall, 1895) |
Pride is the exaltation of self as an absolute standard of
truth, goodness and morality. It judges everything by itself, and for that
reason everyone else is a rival, particularly God. Pride makes it impossible to
know God. If I know everything, then not even God can teach me anything. If I
am filled with myself, then there is no place for God. Like the inns of
Bethlehem, we say to the Divine Visitor: ‘There is no room.’
If pride is the great human obstacle to faith, it follows
that, from the human side, the essential condition of receiving faith is
humility. Humility is not an underestimation of what we are, but the plain,
unadulterated truth. . .
The nature of the act of faith was revealed by Our Lord’s
attitude toward the unbelieving Pharisees. They had seen miracles worked and
prophecies fulfilled. They were not lacking in motives for belief. But they
still refused to believe. Our Lord took a little child in His midst and said: ‘Amen,
I say to you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child
shall not enter into it,’ (Mark 10:15).
By this He meant that the act of faith has more in common
with the trusting belief of a child in his mother than with the assent of a
critic. The child believes what the mother tells him because she said it. His
belief is an unaffected and trusting homage of love to his mother.
When the Christian believes, he does so, not because he has
in the back of his mind the miracles of Christ, but because of the authority of
one who can neither deceive nor be deceived. ‘If we receive the testimony of
men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, which
is greater, because He hath testified of his Son. He that believeth in the Son
of God, hath the testimony of God in himself. He that believeth not the Son,
maketh him a liar; because he believeth not in the testimony which God hath
testified of his Son,’ (1 John 5:9-10).”
~Fulton J. Sheen
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