Soul
Pride
Pride is the queen of all the vices and when it comes to winning the heart first corrupts and then delivers it to his subordinates to destroy you, these are the capital sins which are the cause of all sin. Pride is rooted deep in the man who is leaning on research and the affirmation of its identity, is a vice that is seen only through its dependencies.
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Pride
It lurks within the soul and swollen to the point of not be contained and then overflows outside in an empty and pointless ostentation. So from the bosom of this vice is generated the first of his daughters is vainglory.
With the pride you get into a battle that seems to leave no escape, because the enemy dresses as friend, gets into good deeds, he pollutes ascetic and spiritual discourses, affects the most beautiful and holy enterprises. It is like a gas, which is dangerous because it is invisible and odorless; Pride seems unassailable because it can always bring excellent and persuasive justifications. Its outstanding feature is spiritual and aim first at the imagination, the inordinate desire to be what it is not, to excel at any cost, thus highlighting its contradiction to aim at what is higher up going down at the same time levels ever lower moral, until we become capable of every wickedness. It's kind of lucid madness, since you end up living in an unreal world in which we are slaves of the judgment and recognition of others.
Pride implies a break of the order of creation, and a confrontation with God, it expresses the very essence of sin and somehow underlies all sins. Pride is the basis of greed, because the desire to accumulate is animated by the desire to assert its excellence; It generates pride - in the case of Lucifer - the envy; and the example of Adam and Eve shows how the pride is related directly and indirectly with throat lust, and his daughters are: vanity, hypocrisy, falsehood, contempt of the laws and neighbor and is the most insidious and devastating of all diseases of the soul. But, beyond individual sins, pride is the kind to which all can be traced and through its varied forms, it leads to despise God.
Pride as arrogance stands for: pride, arrogance, anger, conceit, haughtiness, arrogance, pride, self-sufficiency, insolence, conceit, vanity. Concretely the superb has an excessive self-esteem, which leads to contempt of others and believed to be right in everything, it never calls into question regularly imposes his ideas and views of others. The high regard that he himself does sink us into blindness and ignorance: it becomes unable to see into his heart, unable to understand what drives him to act, unable to accept as it really is. The proud refuses to admit mistakes, but stands as a teacher and judge of his brothers. The sophisticated, believing himself better than others, usurps a merit which he has no right. The vain, finally draws ostentation pleasure, before all, their self-sufficiency.
Pride is closely linked to its dynamic hypocrisy of pretending to be what you are not, to play a part that does not belong to the person's depths. Hypocrisy is the desire to appear humble, screams grandeur that must be visible and recognized by everyone. This form of self-reveals the false humility, the inability to shut up and to step aside.
Pride poisons the soul from the depths and makes perpetually unhappy, empty and unhappy life.
Pride is the only one of the seven deadly sins that makes unaware of their own arrogance, indeed not even consider it a vice. It's hard to admit that we are less than we imagined because our culture values us in grandiose terms and does not appreciate the humility and modesty.
For the proud loneliness remains one of the consequences, as only loves himself, and is bound to have an empty life, to the research of self-satisfaction. This gap is the result of an excessive concern for things like; fame, success, honor, external and unpredictable things and for this easy to get lost.
But how to understand if we are at the mercy of pride? Try to test yourself and see if:
- Do you take offense easily and hardship to forgive.
- Do you take pleasure to always be the center of attention, admired, praised, coddled.
- You suffer like in hell and you get irritated if you get blamed.
- Do not you think of anything but make a good impression, to appear, to emerge.
- Check all beautiful in you and everything bad in others.
- Do you want to be always right and discussions never give in.
- Talk willingly and often about you.
- Pretend to counsel to everyone, without accepting from anyone.
If you recognize yourself in these six points then evidently you moved by pride.
Remember that pride is the more odious vice before God, because nothing is more opposed to the glory which is His due. That is why we read in scripture: "God resists the proud, but gives his grace to the humble" (James 4: 6) and that "Pride is the first of all evil, and who is dominated by it will be filled with abomination" (Sir 10:15). And is the eternal punishment inflicted on the rebel angels that you can better measure the gravity of this sin.
In spite Saul was tried by God, and trusting in his weapons and his arms pretended to keep in head the crown of the king, was defeated at the climax of his hopes to the Philistines and, desperate remedy and to escape the insults of the victors, he surrendered to the death of himself.
The giant Goliath, strutting his strength and trusting the army, despising God's people defied in single combat the mighty men of Israel, but when he felt sure, was prostrate on the ground by the blow of what was a simple shepherd boy David.
Absalom, ungrateful, for unbridled ambition to rule revolted against his father, but soon won in battle, while he hoped to save on a fast horse, suspended by the hair to a branch of oak, he lost his life, wounded by three shots spear.
The pride of all sins is huge, obnoxious and insulting to God. What can be more abominable, more odious in the eyes of God that an earthworm, a miserable creature dares to dominate higher esteem by his peers, and give him that glory and honor due only to God?
What needs to strike fear and trembling is the spiritual chastisement which closes the superb the source of all heavenly grace, because the Lord said to never give His divine grace to proud man. And without the grace of God, how can he save himself? If grace is necessary, indispensable to avoid evil, do well, to resist the temptation, overcome the unruly passions, how can you, without grace, could come to paradise?
What can you expect if the hapless does not repent promptly ? Nothing but drops to fall. Fallen from the state of vainglory, from sin to sin, from precipice to precipice, until the total ruin of himself. But what remedy may object to so much evil? What remedy? Humility: This is the sole remedy of pride, this cancer that gnaws at the soul.
So you want to raise you? It begins with the stoop. True humility does not entangle man in his mud, but it enhances the dignity, because it takes as its model Jesus Christ. To this humble, unlike the superb he knows to be grateful because it makes the gift of the experience, remembering the benefits granted by Him in the day as a concrete sign of the Lord's protection and unconditional esteem. It is the sense of the prayer of praise, which summarizes the day and allows you to read it again in a different light.
To begin:
- Do not trust in your knowledge whis is very little compared to what you do not know.
- Do not boast of wealth, if you have, everything could change.
- Do not be proud for the forced loan, or the beauty of the body, about which you think you have.
- Do not flatter your skill and intelligence, they are innate talents.
- Do not consider yourself better than others, it may be that you're overestimating.
God knows what is in man, should not consider yourself the worst. Without humility you cannot eradicate from the heart and correct many vanities and frivolities where you fall frequently; not be able to take away those fixations of judgment, that stubbornness of will, that make so bold; nor ever will be able to hope that your actions, although holy and commendable, are acceptable to God and worthy of eternal life, they are not free from pride on the solid foundation of humility.
Humility consists of an intellectual honesty that enables man to recognize and accept, together with its dignity and greatness, its fundamental limitations, an essential prerequisite to continue the search for the lost original completeness. In a subsequent development, humility enables man to recognize and accept the same characteristics in the other men, and this conscious attitude leads to an understanding and to the imitation of Christ's life.
