Humility, Seventh Step

 St. Benedict’s seventh step is a difficult one:  that a man not only admits with his tongue but is also convinced in his heart that he is inferior to all and of less value.[1]  The following words found in a commentary on the Rule by Holzherr really helps break open the meaning of St. Benedict’s words:

Th
e ‘seventh degree’ is a high point to which the forgoing degrees lead.  One does not merely accept a humiliation with patience.  The attitude of humility must be rooted ‘in the very depths of the heart’ and become second nature.  Only a strong personality is capable, of his own free will and without being plagued by feelings of an inferiority complex, to be content with a modest place, without reacting with fear or resentment.  It is the attitude of the person who is ‘poor is spirit’.  Such a need for help is the preferred place for God’s grace.[2]

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[1] RB 1980, 199.

[2] George Holzherr, The Rule of Benedict, A Guide to Christian Living with Commentary tr. Monks of Glenstal Abbey (Dublin, Ireland:  Four Courts Press 1994), 109.

What we do, we do by the grace of God and not of our own power.