Homily

The priest Arius lived in Alexandria, Egypt, born about the year 250 A.D. To put it very simply, Arius began to preach that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, was not God. He quoted the Gospel of John, 14:28 where Jesus tells the disciple, "If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going back to the Father, for the Father is greater than I." Arius believed that Jesus was not God, but only the highest of all creatures that God the Father had created. If Jesus was begotten of the Father, then He had a beginning, and if He had a beginning, He cannot be God. This caused one of the greatest heresies of the early Church to take root, and from the end of the third century and for almost a hundred years after that the Church was deeply divided over this false teaching. The emperor Constantine called for a meeting of all the bishops of the Church to settle this question in the year 325 AD, and the Fathers of that council in Nicaea declared Jesus to be true God of true God, begotten but not created and equal to the Father. The truth won out, but even so, many Christians would not accept the teachings of this council, and Arianism continued to divide the Church for a very, very long time.

I have wondered about what motivated Arius to hang on to this wrong belief and continue to teach it, even after the council of the Church told him it was a perversion of faith? My guess is that he thought he knew better than anyone else, and that is the sin of pride. The Ukrainian Catholic Catechism has a great little section on pride, explaining that pride is the most dangerous passion and the mother of all sins. Pride is the sin that pushed Satan away from God and has plagued the human race since Adam and Eve. The worst kind of pride takes the form of self-deification, putting yourself in the place that belongs to God. But for most of us, our pride involves putting ourselves over as better than other people, and loving ourselves too much. St. Augustine wrote,

“Where does immoral behavior come from? From pride. Cure pride and there will be no more sin. Therefore, that the source of all diseases might be cured, namely pride, the Son of God came down and was made low.”

The catechism continues that the proud person finds it hard to see their own sins, difficult to forgive others or to ask others to forgive them. The proud person has a hard time giving in, tends to reject authority and frequently flares up in anger. The proud person holds grudges, judging other people and envying the success that others enjoy. Pride tells a person that even when they are doing good, that they, not God, are the cause of their virtue.

When I think about my own sins of pride an easy form of pride to talk about, although it is unpleasant, is the pride that that tells me I need to be right. Someone asks, “How far is it to Dexter?” and I blurt out, “Why would you want to go there?” But then I say, “It’s about 12 miles.” Someone else says, “I think it’s about a 15-mile drive.” Instantly I feel challenged. By giving a different answer to the question you are saying that I am wrong, that I don’t know what I am talking about, that you know better than me. This is so irritating. I must pull out my phone to Google and prove that I am right. “According to ‘Howfarisit.com’ if you fly from here to Dexter it will be a 13 mile trip, so I was only one mile off.” And I have now placed myself back in position number one as the best source of information, especially since it is clear that I am supported by the entire internet. The other person, who had been, until a few minutes ago, my friend, says, “I was just thinking that when I drove there the other day I noticed it was 15 miles.” What insolence! He will not give up in his desperation to prove me wrong, and declare himself the winner. I feel compelled to pull out a currently popular phrase which allows me to walk away without conceding defeat, and snubs the other person at the same time: “Whatever!”

I worry that I, and we, may not worry enough about the place of pride in our lives. What makes it worse is that we live in a society where pride is considered to be a golden word, not a sin, and it is a golden word that can be used to whitewash sinful actions. Gay Pride, is a good example of this, but there are others we can think of. This goes along with the pride that emphasizes me as individual over my marriage, my family, my neighbors, my Church, my country. My ideas, my desires, my opinions must be accepted by all of the above, because, as an individual, I am more important than any of those groups and I bow to no one. The whole abortion industry thrives on the sin of pride and all its offshoots. The war in Ukraine springs from the pride of one man and all those who join with him in his plan of death and destruction. As we look in our own country and see countless examples of the desires of the individual being promoted and glorified over the good of their neighbors, we see the increasingly terrible results that keep building up to afflict our nation all springing from the sin of pride. I ask you to think about how pride has become a major destructive force in America, in so many different ways. And I guarantee you that Satan does not take a day off on federal holidays.

But we cannot cure the pride of others, we can only seek to continue root it out of our own lives, with the help of God’s grace. It’s not a pretty thing to see how pride works in us. It’s no wonder that we might try to avoid thinking about it. Every time I catch myself acting in pride, it really stings, because I thought I was better than that, and here, once again, it proves I am not. But if we don’t confront and continue work against our pride, we leave ourselves open to greater sin and less healthy lives. I know some of you are wondering, and the answer is “Yes, it is a sin of pride to think we do not have pride.” The antidote to pride is humility. I always think of humility as knowing your correct place before God and other people, reminding me I should only think of myself first as a sinner. Humility is a virtue that must be actively practiced, carefully learned and cultivated, and fortified with God’s help. People may think living in humility is a weakness. Watch any show that has the words “housewives of” or “Kardashian” in the title and you will know what I mean. But humility is actually living in reality, where Christ wants us to live with Him.

St. John Chrysostom wrote:

“He who places humility as the foundation of his character can safely build a building of any height. Humility is the strongest fence, an immovable wall, an impenetrable fortress; it supports the entire building and does not allow it fall…and it makes it inaccessible to all attacks….It is through humility that God, the Lover of Mankind, pours out on us His plentiful gifts.”

Let’s not tear down our lives through pride, but, in Christ, build them up through humility.