Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Elizabeth Kirkland CahillDecember 22, 2018
The fall of Lucifer (Wiki Commons)

December 22 / Third Saturday of Advent

He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ~ Luke 1:51

PEWSAGL. This nonsense word is the mnemonic, or memory device, that I created for the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust) during my high school study of Chaucer, and it still occupies space in my brain from that time. (One might legitimately question what genuinely important facts are crowded out by its stubborn presence.) Of these seven offenses, the deadliest is pride, or excessive self-regard. The Greek word for pride that Luke uses in the Magnificat, hyperephania, is defined in my Greek-English lexicon as “a state of undue sense of one’s importance bordering on insolence.” Pride happens when we put too much stock in our own intelligence; when we follow the gospel of self-determination; when we trust not in the promises and plans of God, but in “the thoughts of our hearts.” To those afflicted by pride—and who among us is not? —obedience to God becomes anathema. In Book One of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, the diabolical Lucifer—cast out of heaven for the sin of pride, utterly unchastened by his banishment—thumbs his nose at God in a long and self-justifying diatribe, concluding: “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.” Here is the essence of pride: the refusal to bend the knee to a greater power, the self-assurance that our way is the right way. The 20th-century Anglican theologian Austin Farrer prayed, “Oh God, save me from myself, save me from myself... Teach me to stand out of my own light, and let your daylight shine.” In these final days of Advent, may we direct the thoughts of our hearts not towards self, but towards Christ.

Lord of heaven and earth, strip me of my prideful thoughts, and grant me the humility to worship and love you with all my heart.Amen.

More: Advent / Prayer
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Siddharth Saxena
5 years 11 months ago

Yes! You are absolutely right. Our way is not always right way but when we starts something we always think it is right way. We only realize when we fail. Then we think this way was not right. I am going to enable cookies in chrome and save this page in my bookmarks. I will viit this magazine regularly.

The latest from america

Delegates hold "Mass deportation now!" signs on Day 3 of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee July 17, 2024. (OSV News photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
Kevin ClarkeNovember 21, 2024
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”
Gerard O’ConnellNovember 21, 2024
Many have questioned how so many Latinos could support a candidate like DonaldTrump, who promised restrictive immigration policies. “And the answer is that, of course, Latinos are complicated people.”
J.D. Long GarcíaNovember 21, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers her concession speech for the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Catholic voters were a crucial part of Donald J. Trump’s re-election as president. But did misogyny and a resistance to women in power cause Catholic voters to disregard the common good?
Kathleen BonnetteNovember 21, 2024