I have spent most of this summer praying and thinking about the connection between intimacy with the Lord and humiliation. It is not a clear connection, much less an intuitive one; but I have slowly grown convinced that humiliation is a straight path to God’s heart which is frequently offered us. It is an attractive path in this way, because it is available to everyone. We do not need to seclude ourselves in intense prayer and fasting or bind ourselves to a monastic rule to approach the discipline and purification of humiliation.
I spent two months this summer in Honduras working as a missionary to the people there. They are a beautiful people, characterized by extremely open hearts. They long for the Lord, to know him and to receive him, but they are so spread out through the steeply overgrown mountains that it is very difficult for priests to minister to them. They are like sheep literally lost in the wilderness, only receiving the sacraments once a month at best. When I moved there, I knew next to no Spanish and was capable of understanding none. This meant that I took the lowest place by default. I cooked and cleaned; I went out where I was told to go, and I came back when I was called. I felt powerless as I had never felt so before, unable to communicate except with some of the other folks from the U.S. who happened to be there, and with the Lord in the blessed Sacrament every morning and evening at Mass and during Eucharistic adoration.
I found my powerlessness humiliating. At first I was confused by this feeling, then surprised and even ashamed of it. It was humiliating to see how much I wanted to control other people’s opinion of me, to present myself as competent and clever. But I did not know the language. I could not count the number of times I had to say, “Lo siento, no entiendo—I’m sorry, I don’t understand” every day. I was surprised by the feeling of humiliation because I did not think that it would really be hard not to know a language. I was humbled for two reasons: first because I really was powerless, but also because I suddenly discovered that I wanted to be powerful, and that I frequently resented that the influence I normally have over people was being denied to me. The moment I tried to be the smallest of all and to appear willing and weak as a servant for others, pride rose up in me like a dictator dethroned, furious and self-righteous.
As a direct result of this, I found my meditations on Scripture, and especially on the life of Christ, much more fruitful. I felt closer to him. For Jesus did not come to serve, but to be served. He came to drink deeply of powerlessness and its concomitant humiliation. He more than anyone else has basked in willing humiliation. In this way, the words of Philippians 2:6 (and following) came alive for me, that “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant …” And we are encouraged to “have this mind among ourselves which was in Christ Jesus,” as the preceding verse says. I am back in the U.S. now, but I remain convinced that just as missionary zeal is not an isolated charism, but a universal call for all Christians, so the path of purification through humiliation is not just one way to the heart of God, but the very “Way” that Jesus is. Jesus is the beloved of the Father because he demonstrated that true sonship must be “meek and humble of heart” (Matt 11:21).
Therefore I am forced to the conclusion that, contrary to all my intuition, humiliation is a great freedom. It detaches me from all the lies that I must identify myself with my own power or that I must somehow earn the love of God. It purifies my heart from the insanity of thinking that I must enforce my identity upon the world like a warlord, and instead prepares me to receive my identity as a mark of love from our Father.
I can give a brief example of what this looked like for me. One day we had a priest with us from the U.S. and some of us accompanied him to a mountain village not too far from the mission house. These people did not have the opportunity to have mass or confession very often, like most of the villages. While Father was hearing confessions, the mission director, who was there with us, turned to me and said, “The church is still full of people who are just waiting for mass to begin. Would you like to give them a talk about the sacraments? Maybe encourage them to go to confession if they haven’t already?” I froze. I still hadn’t learned much Spanish. It was only my second week there. I wanted to say yes, but I needed to find some way to prove to myself that it would be alright before I committed myself. I started turning over in my mind all the different ways maybe I could talk about the sacraments with the extremely limited vocabulary I had. But while I was distracted, thinking, planning, one of the other missionaries who was standing by, and whose Spanish was only a bit better than mine, volunteered. I hadn’t said a word.
Later that day during prayer I thought back to the experience. I realized that my priorities had been backwards. I wanted to say yes to the invitation to encourage people to come to the Lord in the sacraments, to talk about the beauty of confession and the power of the Mass, but not as much as I wanted to be sure that it would not cost me too much in the vague currency of pride. The consideration of my power came first: the consideration of the Lord’s invitation came second.
This might seem to be too strong of an analysis. Is it reasonable, is it quite sane, to say yes to something before considering whether it is even possible? Yes, I think it is very reasonable, but only because we are saying yes to someone we trust. Isn’t this what Mary did when she said yes to the plan of an impossible motherhood? Isn’t this what Abraham, our father in faith, did when he agreed to sacrifice Isaac, the son of the covenant? Or what about Jesus, who was eager to die for us, eager to show us just how fearlessly he trusted his Father to provide, eager to receive all things from the Father and to take none of it for himself? I think we must either admit that his willingness to die was completely insane, or else we must come around to seeing it as the very condition of sanity, literally the condition of health and wholeness. Because I do not really provide for myself, and whatever power I think I have is more a mirage than a truth. May we by the grace of Christ learn to receive humiliation from his hand as an invitation to intimacy with him, that we may be joyful sons and daughters of the Father like him.
