We must learn....

Humility lies at the very heart of Benedictine spirituality. If we carry away only one thing from the wisdom of Saint Benedict, perhaps it should be Chapter 7. Sister Joan recognizes its extraordinary importance when she writes that if the preservation of the globe in the twenty-first century requires anything from the past, it may well be the Rule’s commitment to humility.

Humility, however, is not humiliation. It is not weakness, self-denigration, or a lack of self-esteem. Humility is truth—a proper sense of self and a right relationship with God, with others, and with the world around us.

Much of the disorder Sister Joan sees in contemporary civilization grows from the absence of this truth: the powerful believing themselves entitled to dominate the powerless; the wealthy prospering at the expense of the poor; societies consuming without restraint; individuals and nations behaving as though nothing exists beyond their own desires.

Benedict offers another way. Using Jacob’s ladder, he tells us that we descend when we exalt ourselves and ascend when we humble ourselves. The paradox is profound.

We begin the spiritual journey by learning our place in the universe—recognizing our dependence upon God, our connection to one another, and our responsibility for the whole of creation. Humility teaches us that we are neither the center of the universe nor insignificant within it. We belong.

And Benedict invites us to live that truth completely—to bring body and soul, thought and action, desire and behavior into harmony. Humility is not thinking less of ourselves. It is finally seeing ourselves clearly enough to know who we are, whose we are, and how we are called to live.