What better way to celebrate a Marian feast day than with some lessons in humility? Lucky me, Our Lady of Guadalupe sent me three on Wednesday!
Litany of Humility
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, hear me.
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| Virgin of Extreme Humility |
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I,
provided that I may become as holy as I should.
Amen.
~ Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930),
Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X
I heard this litany for the first time several years ago, but it wasn't until this past summer that I was able to bring myself to actually pray it even once. Talk about a difficult prayer... "That others may be chosen and I set aside... that others may be praised and I unnoticed"? Are you kidding me? Well, as it turns out, if one prays for the grace to desire these things then they probably won't sting nearly as much when they inevitably happen.
Last night I found out that I'd been passed over for a writing opportunity which I had considered pretty much a sure thing. I'd gotten to work on the first part of the project last spring and had gotten nothing but positive feedback, along with indications that I would very likely be working on the next part. But somewhere along the line it had been decided to handle this part of the project differently, and the first I heard about it was last night. I was crushed. And hurt. And kinda sorta mad. I had gotten some pretty high praise from the general editor of the project for my previous work, so his statement that they'd decided to go with a "professional writer" for the rest of it made that previous praise sound like "you do great work... for an amateur." I'm sure that was not at all the intention, but it was hard not to take it personally.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
Desire it? Heck, grant me the grace to not burst into tears at the moment (I didn't, barely) and we'll work on the whole "desiring it" thing when I'm waaay holier.
On yesterday's beautiful feast day celebrating Our Mother I also got a nice little reminder of just how easy it is to fail in my vocation as mother. All in all it was a pretty minor failure, but at the time it felt fairly epic. At nap time I put a semi-awake Liam down in his bassinet so I could put a very-awake Michael down for his nap in his crib. After putting Michael down I checked on Liam who was, much to my delight, mostly asleep. I ran downstairs to reheat the soup I got out for my lunch almost an hour previously, and I flipped the switch to turn on Liam's monitor without really looking at it. Twenty minutes later I was finishing up my soup and thinking how wonderful it was that Liam was still asleep, when I thought I heard a slight sound from upstairs. But the monitor was on, and the sound hadn't come through the monitor, so it must not be the baby. Right? I looked at the monitor to make sure, and to my horror it was not, in fact on. The switch was set to "on," but it wasn't plugged in and the battery was dead. Great. Liam had been yelling for who knows how long, while I sat downstairs eating my soup in blissful ignorance. I went upstairs and nursed Liam back to sleep, after which I turned the monitor back on--checking carefully this time to make sure it was, in fact, on. It was. At the time I thought about turning Michael's monitor on as well, but I didn't because the receivers get angry when they're both on right next to each other, and to leave both on I would have to find another place to plug one in. I decided I would just check in on Michael in a little bit. It sounds like a super lame reason now, but at the time it seemed perfectly valid. Half an hour or so later I was thinking how thankful I was that both boys were still napping, and hoping they would continue for a little longer so I could take a shower, when I again heard a noise from upstairs. Sure enough, Michael was awake and calling very pitifully for Cici--presumably because he had already tried calling for Mama, and she clearly wasn't interested in answering. I felt awful, because from the tone of his cries he had been calling for some time. I went in and cuddled him very repentantly, and by some miracle he went back to sleep. I knew I needed to take my shower now or never, but lo and behold, when I came out of Michael's room Liam was awake again. I did eventually get my shower (I know you were very concerned for me), and sleepless babies are not necessarily a failure on my part (although they certainly feel like it), but multiple fails with the monitors was, for whatever reason, very humbling yesterday.
The third lesson was a fairly common one for me--sending an incomplete email. This one, however, was particularly humbling as the email was to my Biblical School students to remind them to complete all the questions on their homework assignments and not just skip the ones they didn't feel like answering. I started to end the email with "Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us," but got distracted and hit "send" before I typed "pray for us." So I immediately had to send another email explaining that I wasn't trying to impersonate Our Lady or imply that she was particularly concerned about completed homework. My students very justly (and kind-heartedly) teased me about it at both classes today.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me Jesus.
That one is actually a bit easier than several of the others...
So what did I learn from all this? That as hard (and scary) as it is, I really need to spend more time praying for humility. Those opportunities to practice it are going to come one way or another, and they'll definitely be easier if I've asked to be prepared for them!
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