The antidote to sinful pride is humility

+JMJ+ Howdy, y’all. I wrote about typology and how to read the Bible as a Catholic last week and I’m thinking about doing some more posts about that. This week I want to focus on the devotion for this month, which is the Sacred Heart of Jesus devotion, the perfect antidote to pride that has gotten inflated to the point of becoming sinful.

Not all pride is sinful. One can take pride in one’s work or have pride in one’s family, and if not taken too far, it’s not sinful. But we all know someone who has taken pride into the realm of hubris and that is sinful indeed.

Dr. Pitre makes it clear that neither he nor the Bible nor Christianity is talking about normal “admiration for accomplishments” or what-have-you. He’s talking about disordered love of self or irrational desire for self-exaltation. He looks here at the words that are translated as pride in ancient Greek and Latin. In ancient Greek hyperēphania is related to a verb meaning to out-shine or over-shine (hyper-phainō). In ancient Latin we have superbia, meaning arrogance or superiority. Basically, this is pointing to a love of self more than love of neighbors, more than love of God.

Quoted from my Catholic Book of the Month series, Introduction to the Spiritual Life, by Brant Pitre.

And what is the antidote to pride? Humility. And what better way is there to learn about humility than to learn about the One Who is Humility Itself, Jesus, specifically the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the devotion associated with it.

Video, Scott Hahn on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Video, The Crucifixion of Jesus – Lectio: The Case for Jesus with Dr. Brant Pitre – Augustine Institute.

Video, A Powerful Introduction to the Spiritual Life with Dr. Brant Pitre.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for visiting and reading. Feel free to comment or leave feedback. May this year be the year we search the Scriptures, and live our Catholic faith to the fullest to become the saints the Lord always meant us to be. God bless you and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

“The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times.” — Padre Pio

Join me on Fridays for the Rosary Project Live on X (formerly known as Twitter) at 8pm ET, 7pm CT, at the pinned thread on my profile page, to cultivate a culture of Light, Life, Love, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, for the conversion of sinners, and for the salvation of souls. Optional Preparation thread begins at 15 minutes before. There’s also a Rosary here on the blog that you can use anytime, 24/7/365.

Notes and Links

Devotion To The Sacred Heart: How to Practice the Sacred Heart Devotion, by Fr. John Croiset, SJ: Paperback, Kindle (Amazon affiliate links, see Full Disclosure below), Free PDF of a much older edition at the Internet Archive.
Heart of the Redeemer: Second Edition, by Timothy O’Donnell: Paperback, Kindle (Amazon affiliate links, see Full Disclosure below).
Burning With Love: Catholic Art Competition Honors the Sacred Heart: Dappled Things’ awards respond to need for fresh, creative and orthodox depictions of Christ.
The Sacred And Immaculate Hearts, a page of links at EWTN.
Haurietis Aquas: On Devotion To The Sacred Heart, Encyclical Of Pope Pius XII, May 15, 1956.
Catholic Book of the Month series, Introduction to the Spiritual Life, by Brant Pitre.
Introduction to the Spiritual Life: Walking the Path of Prayer with Jesus, by Brant Pitre: Hardcover, Kindle. (Amazon affiliate links, see Full Disclosure below.)
The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, by St. Alphonsus Liguori: Paperback. (Amazon affiliate link, see Full Disclosure below.)
Humility of Heart, by Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo: Paperback, Kindle (Amazon affiliate link, see Full Disclosure below.)

Image: 1) Sacred Heart of Jesus, based on a public domain painting by Heinrich Hofmann. 2) Humility and meekness, image from the web, not sure of provenance.

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