The following presentation was part of an event entitled “The Weight of Pride & Wings of Humility,” held at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Rock Island, Illinois on Wednesday, November 29th, 2023.
The key to G. K. Chesterton’s astonishing literary output is his humility. I’ve never read anything by this six-foot-three, three-hundred pound jovial genius that hints at the slightest impression of pride. He is generous with his compliments and always the first to admit his imperfections in a humorously self-deprecating manner. He is always much more concerned about what he is saying than in how he is saying it. He wants you to be more interested in his ideas than you are in him. Truth matters more to him than style. His lengthy paragraphs roll along from idea to idea with unencumbered fluidity. Readers get the impression that his words flow out of him un-self-consciously like Mozart’s musical notations. Even his autobiography has surprisingly few details about the chronological events of his life. His gaze is always outward, not inward. His words are nearly sacramental; they point us to God because that’s the direction he is continually looking. He adores God and not himself.
Let’s begin with this quote from one of the most brilliant books on Christian apologetics ever written, Orthodoxy:
“A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility is force. In perfect force there is a kind of frivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself in the air. Modern investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of ‘levitation.’ They might go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
Chesterton wrote a great deal about Pride and Humility, about wonder and about having the innocent eyes of children. Pride prevents us from appreciating the wonders of life because we’re too focused on ourselves. “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder,” he says. Seeing creation as God made it in all of its beauty and magnificence is to have innocent eyes like children; to be humble is to be content with what we have and with the lives God has given us. Pride is an insatiable drive for more of everything. Chesterton says, “We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.” He also says, “Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door.”
Humility is gratitude for how God made me. Pride is the drive to always be more, to have more; it is insulting God by saying “I deserved more and you should have given it to me.” Chesterton says that “The test of all happiness is gratitude.” And, “When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” And I love this beautiful expression: “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
Now that I’ve seasoned you with a dash of Chesterton’s innocent wisdom, allow me to get at my topic, “Why Angels Can Fly”: They fly because they “can take themselves lightly.” Isn’t this the ambition of all people of faith? To take ourselves lightly and God solemnly? Angels are active and light like birds, they don’t sink like stones because they keep their eyes continually fixed on God. Angels are the most angelic when they are tethered to God. We, too, are most human when we confess that God is God and I am not, the very foundational principle of humility. When we separate from God we separate from ourselves. As Chesterton says, “Take away the supernatural and what remains is the unnatural.” We’re reminded of Peter who took his eyes off Jesus on the stormy sea and lost his ability to levitate on the water. We can imagine Jesus saying, “You can do this, as long as you know it is I who make it possible. Keep your eyes on me.” There is no doubt that the moment Peter became conscious of himself, he began to sink.
Pride is fatal self-absorption, self-consciousness, and self-adulation. When we stop adoring God and begin adoring ourselves, we break communion with both God and our neighbors, and enter a competition for God’s throne, an obvious descent into madness. We cannot gaze exclusively at ourselves and see anything else. Neither our physical nor our spiritual eyes allow us to look two directions at once. Pride is isolation in the small, cramped dungeon of our own egos. Chesterton says that, “The wickedest work in this world is symbolized not by a wine glass but by a looking-glass; and it is not done in public-houses; but in the most private of all private houses which is a house of mirrors.” (On a side note: Chesterton was not a tee-totaler. But he said once that “We should thank God for beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them.”)
As I’ve aged I’ve learned to be careful not to put too much faith in my thoughts and perceptions. I frequently misjudge people and misunderstand circumstances. I think something is true only to learn later that I was wrong. It is unwise for any of us to think of our perceptions as the standard by which we measure the truth. Chesterton suggests, “A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth: this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert - himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt - the Divine Reason” Chesterton learned to trust God by trusting scripture and the traditions of the Church. He writes, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” Humility is the virtue that makes it possible to admit that I cannot be the measure of truth, for that I must continually seek God’s illumination.
Humility is also practical. It is the most essential virtue needed to advance any field of knowledge. Science at it’s heart, in it’s most honest form, begins with the humble assertion that “I think something is true, but I might be wrong. Let’s find out.” Those untethered to objective truth, those who begin with the assertion that their feelings and perceptions are the measure of reality and truth, are those unwilling and unable to be corrected. They are the modern men and women who stubbornly refuse to open themselves to other possibilities, even the possibility that they may be wrong. They defend indefensible positions, they argue without common sense. We learn more, we accomplish more, we grow more, we take our civilization farther when we approach the quest for knowledge and understanding with a humble heart. Christianity and it’s virtues, including humility, paved the way for modern civilization. Our world is dying because we are losing the ability to see and confess that God is God and we are not.
To build his church, Jesus knew he would need a group of men and women who, like children, could be humble enough to trust him. In his day it was the apostles and the broad circle of his followers; in our day it’s you and me. Though Peter struggled to trust Jesus, Jesus trusted him. Our Lord looked past Peter’s impulsive and clumsy manners and saw a humble man at heart. Chesterton understands the relationship between them as well as anyone. He writes, “When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.”
The church founded by Christ and entrusted to humble men and women laid the foundation for all modern progress, progress that can be measured by standards of objectivity, and moral certainty. But it’s also true to say that the Catholic Church, the longest enduring institution in history, has survived, despite her flaws and failures, and they are many, because at the heart of the Church and in the hearts of the men and women who love her, is the desire and ability to be humble. The development of doctrine begins with and is only possible because of the willingness to say, again, that God is God, and we are not.
All true progress depends on humility. Every human advancement begins with people who are willing to say, “I might be wrong.” Mystery and uncertainty are not our enemies. Chesterton says in his introduction to the Book of Job, his favorite book in the Bible, that, “In dealing with the arrogant asserter of doubt, it is not the right method to tell him to stop doubting. It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting, to doubt a little more, to doubt every day newer and wilder things in the universe, until at last, by some strange enlightenment, he may begin to doubt himself.”
We grow in knowledge and wisdom by our humble desire to discern truth. Scientists who seek to discover the secrets of the universe because they believe that ultimately man can control his own destiny are the engineers and brilliant technologists creating artificial intelligence and phones smarter than the ones who use them. They are the journalists, sociologists, and professors who stand on their soap-boxes of moral superiority and decide who should be canceled and who should be promoted. Politicians lacking humility are those who are never able to say to their peers across the aisle, “Your view on this matter is better than mine. I’ll support your bill.” Doctors blinded by their elevated sense of self-worth are the doctors who fail to see the tumors and diseases that sometimes kill their patients. Fathers more interested in themselves than in their sons and daughters condemn their children to a destitute future. The men and women crowding our prisons are there because of their fathers’ pride. Writers without humility have nothing to say. Actors cannot act well unless they are able to forget themselves and become the characters they play. Artisans more interested in their fame than in their craft, fade away unnoticed and forgotten.
Humility, by contrast, begins when we confess that we are not the source of truth: God is. Chesterton says, “Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making the truth the test.”
Perhaps the most beautiful example of humility is the story of Jesus in the upper room on the night he was betrayed. He knew that he was hours away from his painful and bloody execution and chose that moment to encapsulate all he had tried to teach his followers into one lesson, a lesson that would guide them through the rest of their lives, and ultimately become the foundation of his Church on earth. He disrobed, got on his knees and washed their feet. They were horrified. Peter said, “No, no Lord, you will never wash my feet!” To which Jesus replied, “Than you will have no part in me.” Peter realized that once again he had stuck his dusty foot in his mouth. He had allowed his pride, his belief that he knew more about his Lord’s destiny than Jesus himself did, to potentially separate him from his Lord. The possibility of being separated from Jesus was worse than admitting he was a fool. He humbled himself and said, “Lord, than not just my feet by my hands and head as well.” Jesus then turns to his followers and says, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me ‘Teacher and Lord'; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13, excerpts)
Once, the disciples, blinded by their pride, status, and positions, came to Jesus, saying, “Master, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” They expected him to say, “Why, you, of course.” But instead he called to himself a child, he put the child in the midst of them, and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:1-4).”
Christian luminaries understand this teaching much better than I do, but to my way of thinking, Jesus wants us to see that children are instinctively trusting. They abandon themselves completely to those who care for them. They are free, unbounded, not yet preoccupied with the cares of life. They are small, vulnerable, frail, low on the totem pole, susceptible to the world around them. They are curious and posses a kind of natural humility that enables their minds to expand rapidly and unfettered in knowledge and understanding. They are explorers, free to wonder, free to seek, free to question, free to learn, free to succeed and free to fail.
Not that becoming a child again is easy for any of us. Though humility is the virtue of freedom, and pride the heaviness of being enslaved by our own self-preoccupations, it is harder to be humble than to be proud. Chesterton wrote once, “Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One ‘settles down’ into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness... Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do... For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” It surprises me that I have never confessed the sin of seriousness in a confessional. But maybe I ought to. I confess the sin of pride endlessly. Maybe for my penance the loving in persona Christi priests should suggest more laughter.
According to an apocryphal legend a London newspaper sponsored a contest and invited famous literary figures, including Chesterton, to submit editorials, answering the question, “What’s Wrong With the World?” As the story goes, Chesterton’s literary peers submitted lengthy, brilliant essays elucidating complicated social and political problems, suggesting thoughtful solutions. When Chesterton’s turn rolled around, he sent a letter that simply said, “Dear Sirs, I am. Yours, sincerely, G. K. Chesterton.” No one has as yet found the evidence that this story is actually true, but evidence has been located about an article he submitted in 1905 in which he says, “The answer to the question ‘What is Wrong?’ is, or should be, ‘I am wrong.’ Until a man can give that answer his idealism is only a hobby.”
Humility is first a confession. To find the joy, fulfillment and abundant life Our Lord promises we must first see ourselves as we are, fallen creatures with no ability to save ourselves. It is then a celebration and the courage to find the joy and levity that comes from knowing that we are and will forever be God’s first and foremost concern, that He loves us dearly and will and has done everything possible to put wind beneath our wings and lift us into the heavens. Humility is not a mild virtue. It is not timidity. It is fierce and powerful, like wind and sunlight.
Donna and I watched a PBS documentary recently about a special program that pairs well trained dogs with wounded Veterans and combat vets suffering from PTSD and other anxiety disorders. The dogs are trained by a dedicated group of adult female prisoners. In the context of talking about how meaningful the program is to her, one of the women openly admitted to her crime and the reason for her incarceration. She said she made a series of bad decisions and understood why now she must pay a price. She openly admitted to being at fault. It was a Chestertonian moment. She didn’t blame the world or her parents or her circumstances, she simply said, “What went wrong? I did.” I saw this as a beautiful example of humility. And she was happy. She was free.
This is the great paradox of humility. Humility is not the weight of timidity, a forced, heavy, burdensome way of living. It is the freedom of being in right relationship with God, the ability to spend less time worrying about our sins and more time being grateful for God’s love.
C. S. Lewis once said,
Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably, all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.
We cannot let the moment pass without saying something about Christmas as we stand on the threshold of Advent. I mentioned a moment ago that there is no greater lesson in humility than in Jesus washing our feet, but I may have been mistaken. There is one greater lesson: the incarnation. Does anyone doubt that God intentionally chose a young, poor, simple maiden to bear his son? Does anyone doubt that God intentionally chose a crude stall outside an obscure village for the place where the creator of the universe would be born? Does anyone doubt that God intentionally sent a joyous chorus of angles to proclaim the Good News first to lowly shepherds watching their flocks by night? Does anyone doubt that Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, out of great love for you and me? Chesterton puts the astonishing paradox of God’s humility on display when he describes the manger scene and writes that, “. . . the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.”
I will end with one more practical word of advice from G. K Chesterton:
How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they are not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.
Angels can fly because God is in love with them and they are in love with God and they choose every moment never to do anything to risk losing that love. May God give us all such wings.
I enjoyed it very much!