Episode Overview

Podcast: All Things Catholic with Dr. Edward Sri
Episode: 3 Signs We Struggle with Pride
Date: August 26, 2025
Host: Dr. Edward Sri

This episode delves into the subtle and pervasive vice of pride from a Catholic perspective. Dr. Sri unpacks St. Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on pride, explores how it commonly manifests in our lives, and offers practical, hope-filled advice for fostering humility and deeper dependence on God.

1. Understanding the Nature and Gravity of Pride

• Pride Defined

  • St. Thomas Aquinas describes pride as “the inordinate desire for one's own excellence” (02:35).
  • Dr. Sri explains: “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” (03:20).

• Why Pride Is the Greatest Sin

  • Other sins may stem from ignorance or weakness, but pride “is an unwillingness to be dependent on God, to rely on Him” (04:18).
  • The Catechism connects pride to the first sin – the desire “to be like God… but without God” (05:20).

2. Key Signs and Manifestations of Pride

A. Overestimating Our Own Excellence (07:20)

• Not just about outward arrogance or bragging.

• Revealed by:

  • Perfectionism & Frustration: Getting “easily frustrated with ourselves” when imperfect.
  • Examples: “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?” (08:15)
  • “What pronoun am I using over and over again? I… me… I’m looking at myself, wishing I were stronger, more virtuous, more perfect. I wish I didn’t have to depend on God so much” (09:01).

• Saints found peace in their dependence: “The great saints… learned to rely on God ever more. They had an inner peace… understood how weak and dependent they are on God” (10:01).

• Prideful Clinging to Our Plans

  • “We have a certain plan… 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… that’s a certain kind of pride” (12:27).
  • Proper approach: Presenting our desires to God, but surrendering to His will.

• The Need to Always Be Right

  • “Do I always have to be right? Is it hard for me to admit I’m wrong?” (14:17).
  • Reflects in family, marriage, work—difficulty admitting mistakes, being open to others’ ideas.
  • “Whenever I go down that road, it never works out well, even if I get to hold my conviction. But to realize, okay, maybe there’s something that my wife is seeing that I don’t see…” (15:33).

— Memorable Quote

“Notice when I say, why am I not better? …I’m not focused on God. I’m focused on myself.”
— Dr. Edward Sri (09:00)

B. Not Recognizing the True Source of Our Excellence (18:14)

• It’s prideful to think “we’re so good all by ourselves.”
• Real humility “is recognizing the truth about yourself,” including your strengths — but also recognizing where they come from (18:37).
• All talents received through help of others (parents, teachers, coaches) and ultimately from God.
• Example: “Steph Curry… 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” (19:22).
• The story of Lucifer: His sin wasn’t greatness, but that “he thought that he possessed all these excellences on his own. They weren’t given to him as a gift by God” (21:20).

C. Seeking Superiority and Comparing Ourselves to Others (23:01)

• Pride makes us “measure ourselves constantly against other people” (23:13).
• Not inherently wrong to want to excel, but dangerous to crave being better than others – superiority for its own sake.
  • “The prideful man... just desires to be the best, period—better than everyone else, superior” (24:08).
  • Leads to insecurity, criticism, self-aggrandizement, and never truly rejoicing in others’ gifts.

— Memorable Quote

“The virtuous man... desires to be the best he can be... 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.”
— Dr. Edward Sri (24:03)

3. Pride vs. Magnanimity vs. Vanity (26:40)

• Magnanimity: Greatness of soul – “I desire to excel, to be excellent, to be the best I can be.”
• Vanity: Looks similar, but the focus is on praise and approval: “They just want the attention… less interested in the excellence itself” (27:21).
• Pride: Seeks to be superior and does not recognize gifts as coming from God.

4. The Hope of Humility: Meeting God in Our Littleness (28:28)

• Story of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the “valley of humility”:
  • Therese tells her sister struggling with her imperfections that God waits “not on the imaginary mountain of sanctity, but down low in the valley of humility” (29:10).
• God wants to meet us “precisely in our weakness with his love, his mercy, his patience, his tenderness, his grace” (29:52).
• “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” (30:30).
• Humility is “seeing ourselves the way God sees us… and God knows all the messiness in me, and delights in me. And he loves me.” (31:10)

— Memorable Quote

“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 we have. All our imperfections are not obstacles… They’re places God wants to meet us the most.”
— Dr. Edward Sri (30:30)

5. Practical Next Steps and Resources (32:10)

• Dr. Sri recommends his book, When You Pray: Trust, Surrender, and the Transformation of Your Soul, for more on humility and dependence on God.
• Emphasizes: “God delights in us when He sees us meeting Him in the valley of humility, accepting and loving our dependence on Him” (32:38).
• Key closing encouragement: Choose humility and dependence on Him over prideful self-reliance.

Key Timestamps

• 00:00 – Introduction, pride as common but underestimated vice
• 02:35 – Aquinas and the definition of pride
• 04:18 – Why pride is the most serious sin
• 07:20 – Overestimating one’s excellence & perfectionism
• 12:27 – Clinging to our plans as pride
• 14:17 – Needing to always be right
• 18:14 – Failing to recognize God and others as the source of our gifts
• 23:01 – Prideful comparison and the drive for superiority
• 26:40 – Distinguishing magnanimity, vanity, and pride
• 28:28 – St. Thérèse’s “valley of humility”
• 32:10 – Book recommendation and conclusion

Listen For:

• [09:00] Dr. Sri’s insight into examining our self-talk for pride
• [15:33] Marriage and family examples of “needing to be right”
• [24:03] The difference between magnanimity and pride
• [30:30] Thérèse’s valley of humility and God’s love in our weakness

This episode serves as a heartfelt examination of conscience on pride, leaving listeners with both practical tools and a message of mercy and hope: God meets us in humility, not perfection.