Litany of Humility
This is the prayer I said daily for a week, when I was taking the scapular. Perhaps I should make it a daily habit.
A preliminary remark: It is the “desire of being consulted” that really appeals to my particular worldly pride. It is hard indeed to pray to be delivered of this sweet, sweet temptation.
Pity poor Saint Augustine trying to pray for continence when he had a hot Mediterranean babe as a concubine! A philosopher’s craving to be seen as wise is just as potent and degrading. That is what makes we intellectuals so insufferable.
If you think it is hard for a rich man to get in the heaven, how much harder for those rich in book-learning and word-cunning.
And, oh, it is hard for a writer to crave that other get his fame, but then again, the world will do that to good and honest writers whether we ask it or not — the Sad Puppies affair with the 2016 Hugo Awards proved that — so we might as well ask it:
O 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.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
