HUMILITY – COURAGE
TOWARDS OUR OWN TRUTH

Comment to Mathew 11, 25-30

"A king, simple and ready to help, destroys everything that reminds of war, makes for an unlimited peace, reigns world wide and that in great humility.

This you don’t find even in the world of fairy tales. Is it not full of contradictions? Above all a king and being humble! Humility – weakness and cowardice may be associated with it. One thinks of submissiveness and surrender. What is humility in the eyes of God? Especially as God holds the humble in great esteem as the bible tells us. What then is humility?


The Latin word for humility is humilitas and that originates in humus – earth, soil. In a biblical sense humility means the courage to accept our own connectedness to earth and to look at our own human truth. Humility is the courage towards our own truth, our own humanness. It also means to say yes to conditions of our being human, such as to be in need, to be vulnerable, limited, mortal. At the same time we harbour in us the longing that all may end well. Humility entails that we cannot bring everything to a good end ourselves, that we cannot play God.

In the word humilitas there is also the word humour, which stands for being at ease, modesty, composure. The person who can thus accept his earthliness and humanness, yes, even love it, is not fixed upon himself; he can very well take himself aback, have a good laugh at himself, he will be free and even ready to encourage others for life. Humility is very different from despondency and haughtiness. The latter two although being dichotomous have one human weakness in common. In both attitudes man keeps himself busy with himself, despondent or arrogant.

Humility is evidence of inner greatness and liberty."

These thoughts are taken from a sermon given by
Fr. Barnabas Stephan, Würzburg.