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Firstly, if you're reading this: thank you. I'm putting my hopes in the sites and people on Gemini of having a place online to be authentic and communicate something of my "real self" and that trust has been rewarded. I know we're all strangers, but even so it feels like here I have a chance to realize the promise of the early Internet in bringing people together. Thank you. This has been good for me, and I hope you're finding something worthwhile out here as well.
Secondly, here's where I'm at right now. My family and I came into the Catholic church Easter of 2023, and before, but especially since, I've been trying to heed the call we are all issued to grow in holiness. Up to this point I've centered gaining a better understanding and more frequent recourse to the sacraments, which in itself is the work of a lifetime, but lately my life has been going through a period that feels especially hard, and the answer seems to ask more of me than merely meeting the threshold of required observances.
To put it another way, I have problems to bring to the Lord. Small perhaps, but real, and I need help. I've known, and mentally assented to, the idea that none of us are sufficient on our own, but on the whole I've been more "preserved" than "redeemed" to this point. I've placed a trust in God that is now for the first time subject to something that I must hold to it against, and it's new territory for me. Many people have real hardships and burdens in this life, so I believe it is a blessing that my trust need carry me only so far as to believe that I can receive the grace to change.
I do need to change though, and that change is to relinquish my pride. I've lived with an interior need for things to be as I will them to be, and the dissonance between my perception and my reality is causing harm to me, my family, and my relationships with others. The trigger has been work stress, and after an organizational change I've been put in an awkward position where for the first time in my career I'm open to a real chance of failure. The exterior presentation has been nothing more serious than a perceived lack of recognition for the extra effort and conscientiousness I've tried to put forward to solve our problems, but the interior effects have been dire.
This is how I know it's me that needs to change. I can rationally observe that at present this is nearly a non-issue, but the extra hours working, and many more ruminating on the "problem" have stressed me to the point of preventing me from sleeping well and at the worst of it, developing a tremor in my hands. Work has been for a matter of days less than perfectly affirmative in my perceived great abilities and I have worked myself into a state where I have little left in the tank for the perennial, routine difficulties of daily life with small children, and the effort of moderating my responses with them has brought me to later tears more than once.
I have needed work to affirm me, and it's not reasonable. I've lost sight of the great gifts of my life, and for that reason this private devotion of the church has felt to me like an antidote to the poison of my pride. I am still working at it, but reflecting on this prayer has helped me and if there's someone else out there that this resonates with I hope it can help you too.
Lord Jesus. Meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
I'm including two links for some additional helpful context and especially the second, for a caution against seeing 'humility' in a disordered way.
https://hallow.com/blog/how-to-pray-the-litany-of-humility/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR4AvfP6C5U
Nov 11 · 5 weeks ago · 👍 CitySlicker, eddos · ❤ 1
I don't know whether this is useful, but I've tried to make a habit of speaking well of others who do a thing better than I can.
When someone praises my work, I take it, and also share something about people I know who do some aspect of it better than me. Whether anyone cares to look them up or not, it's at least a reminder to myself to not let praise go to my head.
I don't want attention beyond what I need to earn a basic living at my craft.