“And Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior,
for He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant’” (Luke 1:46).
Imagine the man standing in the garden. The woman approaches, puts her arm on his shoulder and whispers something in his ear. He hesitates. He lowers his head. She says, “It’s alright. The serpent told me it will be a good thing for us, and he’s been here long before us.” The man looks long at the tree, and then he sees something between himself and the tree. He turns from the woman and walks in the other direction.
You know the story—what would have made it come out another way? What did they lack? The answer lies in the above words of the Virgin Mary: “He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant.” You may call it innocence on the part of Eve and Adam. Forgive them if you wish. As the French say: To understand is to forgive. But Mary was also innocent. What was her secret for pleasing the Lord? Not innocence, but humility. That’s the key to pleasing God.
The fathers of the past tell us that what St. Luke calls lowliness is freedom from all conceit. It’s not having a low opinion of oneself, for that opens the soul to being led into sin by the clever and manipulative. Nor, of course, is it vanity, for that leads to conceit and takes the form of pride. That sin brought down not just Adam and Eve, but Satan himself. The Bible is replete with warnings against pride: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). “A man’s pride shall bring him low; but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit” (Proverbs 29:23).
Humility is the antidote to vanity. It comes from the term earth [humus]. One cannot fall far if he’s close to the earth. It embraces the beatitude: poor in spirit. Just as the proud person is a know-it-all who cannot learn because his opinion passes for wisdom in his own mind, so the humble and poor in spirit have a built-in receptivity to the Word of God.
The fathers place humility at the head of virtues, just as pride stands at the top of evil. The humble person is not likely to judge others, because he or she recognizes how much he has to travel on the way to God’s Kingdom. Pride cancels self-awareness, but humility opens the door to that blessed capacity.
Humility does not reside alone in the soul of a person who knows himself and is beginning to see God’s image within. Such a person is eager to work for the Kingdom to come on earth. He is not one to look around and wonder why there is so much confusion, ignorance, hatred and disobedience. He has enough to do snuffing out the traces of those snares in himself. And when he looks in himself, he finds nothing worth admiring. If anything good can be discovered by his deeds, he gives all the glory to God. Grace is the instrument by which anything worthwhile is achieved, and that comes from the Holy Spirit. “Praise God” is his instinctive reply to any compliment sent his way. He expects nothing much from the Lord, and he is satisfied with what it pleases God to send him. Even when hard times and disappointment find his heart, he is able to thank the Lord for the challenge to his faith and the opportunity to overcome the difficulties.