← All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
3 Signs We Struggle with Pride
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What are the classic signs that we struggle with the sin of pride? Drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas, Dr. Sri breaks down three ways we can subtly fall into pride and emphasizes the importance of acknowledging our dependence on God and His grace.
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This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos and resources to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com hi, I'm Edward Sri, and welcome to All Things Catholic, where real faith meets real life. Today I want to talk about a certain human weakness that we all struggle with, but we may not fully realize how much it has a hold on us. I want to talk about the vice of pride. Now we may admit, oh, I struggle with pride. I can be prideful. Oh, I'm so proud. And we might even joke about it a bit. But do we realize how much it affects everything in our lives? When we struggle with pride? It affects our marriages, our ability to enter into a deep union that God wants us to have with our spouse. It impacts our kids, preventing us from being the parents God wants us to be for them. It affects our friendships. It affects our affects our ability to navigate conflict within community. It even affects our relationship with God. What exactly is the vice of pride? And what are some of the classic signs that I might be struggling with pride in a certain way? And most of all, how can I find greater freedom and healing from this vice? That's what we're going to take a look at in this week's podcast. So welcome to All Things catholic. I'm your host, Edward Sri, and we've been looking at the virtue of temperance, one of the four cardinal virtues, the virtue of self control. And last week we talked about how important it is that we moderate our attraction to pleasure, especially the pleasure around food. We looked at the vice of gluttony. We could also consider our attraction to the pleasures in drink and consider the vice of drunkenness, or our attraction to the pleasure of sex and the vice of lust. But today I want to highlight something St. Thomas Aquinas brings out in his magnificent writings on the virtues. Some of the most extensive teachings ever written about the virtues we find in St. Thomas Aquinas. And he highlights how some self control temperance is also needed to moderate other desires. Not just attraction to pleasures of food, drink and sex, but also other desires, like desires related to anger or what we're going to look at today. The desires related to pride. What exactly is pride? Aquinas defines it as the inordinate desire for one's own excellence. Just think of it as not accepting the truth of who you really are, that you are someone dependent on God, that you need God for everything in your life. And that lack of acceptance of our dependence on God, a lack of willingness to truly rely on him is at the heart of pride. You know, in the Catholic tradition, pride is considered the greatest of sins. But I love what St. Thomas Aquinas says about this. On why pride is the greatest of sins, he notes how other sins turn us away from God because of our weakness or because our ignorance. We just don't know enough, or we desire other things instead. But pride is an unwillingness to be dependent on God, to rely on Him. The catechism explains that the first sin involving pride involved man wanting to be like God, but without God. I want to live my life. I want to have a certain vision for my life achieved in my life. But I don't want to have God involved. I don't have to depend on him. I don't want to rely on Him. Now, some of us may be hearing this and going, me proud? Oh, sure, I struggle with pride, but maybe not as bad as other people. I hope what we do today will be helpful for all of us here, because Aquinas is going to break down the different signs of pride. And I hope this will be kind of an examination of conscience for all of us. I know it was for me, as I'm preparing this. You know, it's so funny. Whenever I'm teaching on the virtues, my wife typically notices. She'll go, hey, are you teaching on the virtues again? She could tell I'm a little nicer. I'm a little more on my game. It's because I'm just filling my mind with these things. I'm more aware of it. And I've got to tell you, when I was reading about pride today and preparing my notes for our show today, it was hitting me. I was thinking, wow, I know this stuff. I teach on this all the time. I've written a whole book on this topic on the virtues. And man, I still have a long way to go. I want to talk about what Aquinas says here in our little examination of conscience on pride. He says different ways pride appears in our lives. First is when we overestimate our own excellence. Now, when you hear that, you might think of the proud person as someone that's going around and he's bragging about how awesome he is. I think you could have an ordinary Catholic that's not going around very arrogantly like that, struggling with a lot of pride. For example, how do you respond when you're less than perfect, when you make a mistake, when you do something embarrassing, you say something you wish you didn't say, you sin? Do you remain calm interiorly? Do you have Interior peace, knowing that the Father in heaven delights in you, loves you, even in your weakness, even in your imperfection, even in your sin? Or do you have an interior agitation, a frustration? Why can't I be better? How come I'm still struggling with this? How come I'm not improving? What's going on in the inside when you're imperfect? I think that's a great examination. St. Thomas Aquinas invites us to consider here when he talks about how we can overestimate our own excellence. Because if we really know ourselves, we acknowledge that we're weak and we need God. We need his mercy, we need his grace. But there's a part of us that may have a certain perfectionism that we want to find our identity and security in being perfect in all that we do professionally, in our families, and especially in the spiritual life. And when we find ourselves less than perfect, we get easily frustrated with ourselves. But notice how that's a kind of pride. Notice when I say, why am I not better? I can't believe I did that again. Why do I have to keep bringing the same sin to confession? What pronoun am I using over and over again? I'm not focused on God. I'm focused on myself. I, I, I, me, me, me. I'm looking at myself, wishing I were stronger, more virtuous, more patient, more generous, more perfect. I wish I didn't have to depend on God so much. No, no. The great saints, they were so human, you know, and they certainly were perfected over time. But how they bec transformed by God's love was that they learned to rely on God evermore. They had an inner peace, and they understood the true condition of our humanity. They understood clearly how weak and dependent they are on God. In other words, like when we stumble, we fall, we sin. We shouldn't be so shocked and surprised. We should go, of course, this is who I am. But it could be a kind of spiritual pride that does not want to depend on God's mercy, does not want to have to rely on God's grace, that wants to be perfect on our own. And we get easily frustrated with ourselves. God wants to free you from this. He wants you to live in his love. He wants you peacefully to rely on him and not yourself. So that's one way we can fall into spiritual pride where we overestimate ourselves. Another way could be by clinging to our own plans and our own dreams. We could be very willful with God. We have a certain plan we have for our lives, something we really want. I Want this promotion, I want this relationship to work out. I want this dream for my kids to work out. And I have certain plans for my life and I'm just so attached to them that I'm not open to God maybe having a better plan for me. And so I live in a lot of fear and anxiety. I have to control everything and manage every detail to get what I want in my life. If I'm living in that anxiety, that need to control everything things so I can get what I want, that's a certain kind of pride. I'm not really depending on God and trusting God's plan for my life, trusting that his plans and his dreams are always bigger than whatever I could come up with on my own. Now, don't get me wrong, of course we should have plans and dreams and we present them to the Lord, say, lord, I would love this for my kid or I would love this for my career. Jesus, I pray for the grace, if it's your will, that this would work out. But if it's your will, but we still lay it at God's feet, we put it in his hands, which are more trustworthy than my own hands. And I say, heavenly Father, I desire this and I pray that if it's your will, you may bless it. But if you have something better for me, Lord, please show me that and give me the grace to do that. So that's another way we can fall into pride, clinging to our own will, our own plans, our own dreams so much. Maybe a third way is, do I always have to be right? I think that's a great question. Do I always have to be right? Is it hard for me to admit I'm wrong? I want you to think about just your relationships, the people you interact with regularly, whether it's in your career, whether it's your family, your spouse. Do you always have to be right? Is it hard for you to admit, oh, I messed up here. Oh, yeah, I dropped the ball. Oh, yeah, I didn't get that in on time and that affected my teammates at the office or. Oh, honey, yeah, I did say I was going to go to the store and I didn't. And I just own it. And I'm sorry. Is it hard for me to do that? Or even deeper, is it hard to admit that I was just wrong? My idea was wrong. I thought this would be better. And you know what? My wife's idea, actually, that was the right one. My idea was not the right one. Can I admit in the office, Yeah, I thought we should go in this direction. But I was wrong. Is it hard for us to admit a fault, to admit a mistake, to admit that we're wrong? Do we always have to be right? You see that kind of pridefulness within us. If we're. We always think, you know, we're smarter, we're better, we're wiser, that's not going to serve us well. It causes friction in relationships. I can't really receive the other person, receive their ideas, receive their questions, because I always have to be right and I always have to have my way. This happens all the time, right? In. Just take marriage. In marriage, I've got this certain thought in my head, yep, this is how we should do it. Of course this is what we need to do with the kids. Of course this is what we need to do with the family routine. And then if there's conflict, then I think, well, she just doesn't understand or she doesn't see it my way. And whenever I go down that road, it never works out well, even if I. I guess to hold my conviction. But to realize, okay, maybe there's something that my wife is seeing that I don't see. Maybe in the office, there's something that my colleagues are seeing and noticing that I don't see a problem with my idea or a better way of going at it. Am I able to really receive the other person? Or am I pridefully always just pushing my own ideas, assuming that I'm always right? Now, notice, this is just one way we can fall into pride. Aquinas gives a number of things. We're going to look at three of them. This first one involves overestimating our own excellence, not realizing how small we are, how weak we are, how imperfect we are, how much we need to depend on God and depend on other people. But there's a second way we can fall into pride, and that is not recognizing the true source of any good quality, any excellence that we possess. What does Aquinas mean by this? Basically, we may have certain good qualities. Maybe we're really good at using spreadsheets. Maybe we're really good at designing flyers. Maybe we're really good at making three pointers on the basketball court. You know, whatever our skill is, we have certain excellences in our lives. And the truly humble person can acknowledge those. Because true humility isn't saying, oh, I'm not really good at spreadsheets, even though, like, I'm a genius with it. That's not true humility. True humility is recognizing the truth about yourself, which involves, you're really good at those spreadsheets or you're really good at those three pointers. Steph Curry, you know Steph Curry, amazing all star NBA basketball player, one of the best of all time. If someone were to say to him, you're really great at those three pointers, and he would just go, oh, no, I'm not that great. That's not true humility. True humility recognizes the truth about oneself. And part of that truth is that Steph Curry's really good at making those shots. Now there's a fuller truth that we recognize in the process, and that is that maybe I got really good at making those spreadsheets because, oh yeah, I had an internship and I took this class and there were great teachers and then my boss really helped me with this and I was given these opportunities. So I'm thankful for these teachers and experiences that I had. I'm acknowledging that I didn't just achieve this skill in spreadsheets all on my own. Or, you know, I may be really good at designing the flyers, or maybe I'm really good at shooting those three pointers, but why am I good at shooting those three pointers? Well, I didn't come out of the womb as with a great three point shot. I had a great coach, my parents invested in me, I had great teammates. I had someone when I was in high school help me with my three point shot. I don't know Steph Curry's story, but we recognize the source of the qualities we have, that we don't have them all on our own. And it's prideful when we think that we're so good all by ourselves. This was the devil's sin. Lucifer. He was the most brilliant, the most glorious, the most powerful, the most beautiful of all the angels God created. That's why he's called the Shining one. His problem was not that he was so brilliant and beautiful and powerful. It was that he thought that he possessed all these excellences on his own. They weren't given to him as a gift by God and that he didn't need God. He's denying his dependence on God. And so whatever qualities we have, we always want to recognize where they came from. Whether it's our parents or whether it was a great teacher, whether it was a great coach, whether it was a mentor, a friend, and ultimately any excellence we possess, whether, whether it's in our careers or on the basketball court or with musical instruments or ability to relate to other people, whatever gifts we have, they ultimately come from God. And do we take time to recognize that so that's the second area we can fall into. Pride is forgetting to recognize our dependence on God and the people he's placed in our lives to help us to grow in these qualities. And then there's the third way. Third way we can fall into pride, Aquinas says, is the manner in which we possess these good qualities we have. What does he mean by this? He says, well, we could start to compare ourselves to others, where we're measuring ourselves constantly against other people. Are you always looking over your shoulder and seeing, oh, where do I measure up, you know, as a dad, as a husband? Where do I measure up in my career? Where do I measure up at the parish? Do I have this competitive side of me? Nothing wrong with being competitive. Nothing wrong with learning from others and having others motivate us and the pursuit of good things in life. But do I have this desire to be superior? I have this need to be better than everyone else. That's the dangerous point. You know, the true virtuous man, the magnanimous man, desires to be the best he can be. We should strive, given what God has given us. I should try to be the best I can be in all that I do. The prideful man does not desire to be the best he can be. He just desires to be the best, period, better than everyone else, superior. The prideful man, therefore tends to look down on others, criticize others, always pointing out other people's faults because they have to always be better, always be superior. There's almost kind of an insecurity in the prideful man that they notice anyone else that's rivaling them in, in a certain excellence. You know, they notice someone else is, you know, oh, they're doing really well at the office and the boss is noticing him. Oh, I, I get really insecure and, and I have to point out that person's faults and I have to be superior. That's pride. Do I view others as threats? And this could lead to this certain, you know, competitiveness, self aggrandizing, you know, I start thinking myself as an inflated view, better than everyone else. But this competitive edge, desiring not just to be the best I can be, but to be the best, that is a form of pride. And I just want to close with the difference between the virtue of magnanimity, which is greatness of soul, which is, I desire to excel, I desire to be excellent, I want to be the best I can be. Vanity is something that kind of looks like magnanimity because that person may be very driven to try to be the best they can be, but they're not as interested about being excellent. They're not as interested in being virtuous, growing in a certain skill. They just want to be noticed. They just want to be praised for having a certain quality. They want approval from other people. They want pats on the back. They want to be noticed. So they're looking for the praise that might be associated with a certain excellence, but they're less interested in the excellence itself, the virtue itself. They just want the attention that they get for appearing like they're excellent. So magnanimity desires to be the best they can be, to take the qualities they have from God and use them to serve God and His kingdom. The vain person wants to have the appearance of being virtuous and being excellent, and they like the applause and the praise. The prideful person simply wants to be superior. They want to be the best. And they don't see that the qualities they have really come from God. They don't want to have to depend on God. They actually kind of deep down think that they're just so amazing on their own, that they are a gift, gift to God just because they're just so good instead of seeing. No, God has given them these amazing gifts. We all probably have some degree of struggle with pride and vanity. But I want to end with a message of hope. I want to share a story from the wisdom of the great Saint Therese. You know, Therese wrote about once where she was writing to one of her sisters who was feeling overwhelmed by her many weaknesses and imperfections and falling into that kind of spiritual pride. And Therese said, oh, you're trying to scale the mountain of sanctity. You feel you're overwhelmed by all these weaknesses and imperfections, and you're trying to climb your way up to God because you got so much to work on in your life. But you know what? God doesn't want to meet you in this imaginary mountain of sanctity. Therese goes on to say, no, God's waiting for you down low in the valley of humility. And so whatever we may struggle with, whatever sins we have, even this particular sin of pride, the good news is even in our weakness. In fact, not just even, but precisely in our weakness is where God wants to meet us the most with his love, with his mercy, his patience, his tenderness, with his grace. He's waiting for you down in the valley of your fears, your doubts, your discouragement, your anger, your impatience, your brokenness, your insecurities, your anxieties, all the messiness that we all have, all of our Many imperfections are not obstacles to our relationship with God. They're actually places that God wants to meet us the most. Because when we dare, in the virtue of humility, to go and meet him in the truth about ourselves, that's what humility is. We see ourselves in truth and God is truth. We see ourselves the way God sees us. And God knows. God knows how I lost my temper with this child last week. And God knows this bitter thought I had about somebody. And God knows this fear that I have. And God knows how I'm attached to certain things and what I'm so scared about might happen. God knows all of this stuff in me. He knows all the messiness in me, and he delights in me. And he loves me. And he wants me to come to him in the valley of humility in my imperfection, in my weakness, so that I can experience his unconditional love and then begin to be healed by his grace. And so if you want to learn more about the virtue of humility and how to learn to grow in your dependence on God and you want to rely on him more, you could check out there's a book I wrote on this topic here. It's called when you pray, trust, surrender, and the transformation of your soul. Several chapters in there, all about this spirituality of Saint Therese in the little way that we mentioned earlier, how she learned to love her littleness, that God delights in us when he sees us meeting him in the valley of humility, accepting and loving our littleness and our dependence on Him. He loves it when we come to him so in need of him, so crying out, I need you, Lord, and depending on him instead of pridefully trying to rely on ourselves. Thanks so much for listening, my friends. Next week we're going to continue our walk through different virtues. We're going to talk about the passion of anger. Can anger be used for good? How does anger sometimes lead us to harm? That's we're going to take a look at next week.