Thought for the Day – 29 April – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)
Pride
“Just as humility is the most difficult of the virtues to acquire, pride is the most common of the vices.
We are all conceited and take pride in things, which do not belong to us but to God!
One would imagine, that it would be easy to understand that we are nothing without God but, in practice, it is the other way round.
It is not only prominent personalities, noted scientists and men of letters but also the most ordinary men, who believe, that they are unique and superior to their fellows.
Other vices follow pride.
There is a presumption which leads us to believe that we are more important than we really are and attempt things which are beyond the power which God has given us.
There is ambition ,which drives us to make an immoderate quest for honours and responsibilities, our main goal in life, as if our hearts could be satisfied by these things, rather than by God and by our own sanctification.
There is empty vanity, the futile but burning desire to be praised and esteemed, as if our merits (if we have any) were anything else but a gift from God, which we have been able to develop only by His assistance and grace.
Let us examine ourselves in this regard and we shall find many distortions in our own personality.
We shall discover many vain notions, which we ought to dispel and many selfish detractions from God’s glory of which we are and have been, guity.
“Take away pride,” said St Augustine “and what are men but men?”
Remove the mask of arrogance and affectation and who will find, that even those men, who regard themselves as outstanding personalities, are very insignificant creatures after all.
Let us keep constantly in our mind the words of Jesus: “Amen, amen I say to you, the servant is not greater than his lord; neither is the apostle greater than he that sent him” (John 13:16).”
We can learn a great deal from a meditation on this subject.
Antonio Cardinal Bacci
PART ONE HERE:
https://anastpaul.com/2020/04/20/thought-for-the-day-20-april-pride/
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