Le blog de la Bergerie

Litany of Humility

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me! deliver me! rescue me! fullfill me!

From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, rescue me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, rescue me, O Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, O Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, O Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, O Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, O Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, O Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That other may be preferred to me in everything, O 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, O Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.

This prayer should be offered in front of a crucifix.
It was written by Rafael Cardina Merry del Val, secretary of state for Pope Saint Pius X.

He who humbles himself will be exalted. Luke 18:14

Humility is the foundation of prayer.
Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26), are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayers. CCC 2559.

I highly recommend Part 4 of CCC here on Christian Prayer. It's a terrific overview of all prayers, it is very easy to read and at the same time it is very profound and it is very encouraging. There is a wonderful part on intercession, on meditation, on contemplative prayer, on the battle of prayer and on the prayer of the Hour of Jesus.

"The steps (toward hope and trust) are totally impossible without the acceptance of grace in the form of the theological virtues. The first step to be taken, the first thing to be learned, is the sovereignty of God. This is learned only in darkness when we come to the realization of our absolute insufficiency. We simply cannot do anything alone. We are for the first time in our lives faced with the possibility of genuine humility".
From Fr. Benedict Groeschel "Spiritual Passages" end of chapter 6.
Then Fr. Groeschel quotes Gerald Heard: "We must start without delay on the painful, steep, humiliating path of undoing our busy, deliberately deluded selves. So only will the kingdom come, where it must come fully and where we alone can decide whether it shall come - in ourselves. "The Kingdom of God is within you", Yes, but only if we are prepared to let that powerful germ of eternal life grow. … Indeed we may say that the whole secret of the spiritual life is just this painful struggle to come awake, to become really conscious. And, conversely, the whole process and technique of evil is to do just the reverse to us: to lull us to sleep, to distract us from what is creeping up within us, to tell us that we are busy-workers for the Kingdom when we are absent-mindedly spreading death, not life".

This is why I need to pray this litany of humility!
This is exactly the essence of the Christo-centric life:
it is only in a life of humility that we will obtain real freedom;
it is in following Jesus can we become our best true self
and see the best possible in others;
it is in accepting fully and gratefully to be part of the Body of Christ
that we will see clearly the truth of the world
and finally grasp the key to the Kingdom!

In our spiritual growth, vulnerability and humility RULE!

MicheleSzekely@2014-2021