We all want to get closer to God. That’s why we’re here today. And this desire is a gift from the Holy Spirit. It’s because we’re made for God and we can’t reach our full potential without him. Today the Church reminds us of the essential ingredient for getting closer to God: humility.
In today’s first reading, Moses vaguely senses the Lord’s presence when he sees the burning bush. He comes closer, but then God stops him because he was moving toward God on his own terms. When we do that, there’s a limit to how close we can get.
To break through that limit, Moses had to make an act of humility. God tells him, “Take off your sandals because you’re standing on holy ground.” Only when we become aware of our limitations are we able to know God. Because of this, there are three things we need to know about humility.
Humility is a virtue
A good definition of humility is: The virtue by which we recognize our dependence on God. Our recognition of this dependence is found in obeying God’s commandments that we find in the teachings of Jesus and his Church.
Jesus reveals to us that God is not only all-powerful, but also all-good, all-loving and all-merciful. That’s why we can rejoice in the knowledge that we are dependent on him because humility shows us that we are in very good hands.
Humility increases another virtue: courage
We all need courage to resist temptation, to get through difficulties and to step out of our com- fort zone. Like Moses, we’ve been called to an important mission that will take us beyond our weak human abilities—the mission of becoming holy and building the Kingdom of God here on earth.
If we don’t have humility, we’ll either run from our mission, ignore our mission or trick ourselves into thinking that this really isn’t our mission. But if we rely on God instead of our own abilities, we won’t be intimidated by the challenges and the enemies that are constantly trying to defeat us. Re-member the story of David and Goliath!
When we depend on God’s supernatural Grace instead of our own abilities, we begin to live super- natural lives, conquering evil instead of being conquered by it. Remember what the angel told Mary, “Nothing is impossible for God!” (Luke 1:37)
Humility brings us interior peace
Frustration, which is basically stress and discouragement, is really a subtle form of arrogance. It comes from our expectation that because we’re so smart and powerful, we can make everything work out perfectly the way we want it. But when things don’t turn out the way we want, we become frustrated, angry and depressed. That’s stress!
Humility is the exact opposite. This virtue reminds us that we are not God, and that we cannot control everything. Humility gives us realistic expectations by helping us to give our best effort, while at the same time keeping us mindful of our limitations. We can’t control what other people do or say; we can’t dictate how everything is going to turn out. A humble person knows this and accepts this, and as a result, this person enjoys interior peace.
Take off the sandals of your self-sufficiency
We all want a closer relationship with God. We all want to grow in courage. We all want to experience interior peace in our lives. All of this can happen, if we, like Moses, take off the sandals of our self-sufficiency and learn to trust God. That’s easy to say, but not so easy to do. So here are two ways to help us increase humility in our lives.
First, spend time every day in prayer, even if it’s just a few minutes a day; even if it’s only using the simple prayers you learned as a child. Every time you pray, you exercise humility by acknowledging that God is God, and you are not. That’s exactly why the devil doesn’t want you to pray.
Second, we can talk less. We can’t hear God if we’re always talking. Proverbs 10:19 tells us that, “Where there are many words, transgression is un-avoidable.” This is clearly seen in our conversations. We tend to focus more on our own ideas, feelings and opinions. By listening attentively to others, we can gradually purify ourselves from destructive, self-centered, tendencies.
St Faustina wrote, “Now I understand why there are so few saints; it is because so few souls are deeply humble.” May we always seek humility!