Tuesday, July 17, 2007

HUMILITY


Definition (Wikipedia): Humility is a quality or characteristic ascribed to a person who is considered to be humble. "Humility is derived from the Latin word "humilis", which means low, humble, from earth. A humble person is generally thought to be unpretentious and modest: someone who does not think that he or she is better or more important than others. Humility is not to be confused with humiliation, which is the act of making someone else feel ashamed, and is something completely different.

St. Thomas Aquinas(right), a 13th century philosopher and theologian in the Catholic tradition, defines humility similarly as "the virtue of humility" that "consists in keeping oneself within one's own bounds, not reaching out to things above one, but submitting to one's superior." His "Summa theologica" impacted me greatly a few years back. One of my favorite Aquinas quotes : "How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God. "

Paul say it this way in Phil 2:

"Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i wish this was humility stuff was easy :-/