It’s an issue of interior transformation. It won’t happen overnight or in a few days, at least not in any permanent manner.
Monastics spend their entire lives trying to perfect this virtue; in the Rule of St. Benedict, humility has 12 degrees.
At its most basic level,
The first degree of humility, then,
is that a person keep the fear of God before his eyes
and beware of ever forgetting it.
Let him be ever mindful of all that God has commanded;
let his thoughts constantly recur
to the hell-fire which will burn for their sins
those who despise God,
and to the life everlasting which is prepared
for those who fear Him.
Let him keep himself at every moment from sins and vices,
whether of the mind, the tongue, the hands, the feet,
or the self-will,
and check also the desires of the flesh.
The second degree is:
The second degree of humility
is that a person love not his own will
nor take pleasure in satisfying his desires,
but model his actions on the saying of the Lord,
“I have come not to do My own will,
but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38).
It is written also,
“Self-will has its punishment,
but constraint wins a crown.”
I find a good way to start, with humility, is to master obedience to God and anybody who holds legitimate authority over us (as long as they don’t command us to do something contrary to God’s law). For example, at work, place your boss in the position of the abbot:
The third degree of humility is that a person
for love of God
submit himself to his Superior in all obedience,
imitating the Lord, of whom the Apostle says,
“He became obedient even unto death.”
The important thing is that this is a life-long transformation process; another important aspect of humility and growing in spiritual depth, is learning to let go, especially let go of our own pride which often is simply a mask for our own insecurity which itself comes from a lack of trust in God.
Learn to really
trust God with your life, and especially learn to accept yourself as you are because He accepts you as you are, and trust in His mercy, on which we are all totally dependent. It takes time but then you’ll be able to let go of your pride. Pride is just a mask to plaster over our own hurts and inadequacies.
I still have a long way to go to reach the 12th degree. It is like Jacob’s ladder, you rise by descending, and you descend when you try to exalt yourself. My Benedictine oblation, I hope, helps me understand this and transform myself so that some day I may reach the 12th degree.
