The Prayer That Changed My Life
As a lifelong artist I have always struggled to find the balance between confidence and pride.
The ability to give life to a new work and confidently present it to the world can be a challenge for all creatives that suffer from the ever-present imposter syndrome, and my artistic career has been without exception from this reality. On the other hand, remaining humble to the fact that no work is truly my own and that I am simply the steward of the message is equally challenging.
Now approaching the second full week of the Lenten season, I have been doing a bit more soul searching on this particular topic than usual, and while I’ve admittedly felt drained with all that life has had to offer lately, I’ve realized the gifts that can be found in the discipline of simply showing up.
Every Saturday at 6:30am, I have the opportunity to snooze or to join a group of men within my parish, and everything in my being wanted to simply stay in bed this past week.
Getting up for this meeting literally changed my life. After coffee and opening prayer, we sat down to discuss the topic of humility and what it really means. I always thought of myself as a humble person, so it did not seem like this would be the topic that would radically change the way I approached my work and life.
I was wrong.
As the talk came to a close, I was presented with a copy of a prayer attributed to Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val y Zulueta- the Secretary of State to Pope Saint Pius X (1903-1914): The Litany of Humility.
As a child, I received many prayer cards and books full of prescribed prayers for any difficult moment of life, but I was completely unprepared for how this one would speak to me. I realized how even in my attempts to be a humble person, there was so much that I was missing out on, but the understanding of what it means to be truly humble brought a sense of peace and joy that is hard to explain in words. Here’s the prayer in it’s entirety:
The Litany of Humility:
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That last line absolutely shocked me. I know that the call to holiness is a universal one, but I had never truly grasped just how deep the idea of true humility went. Just a few minutes with this prayer every morning has radically changed the way I approach every situation throughout the day as I lean on the grace to desire to serve others through the gifts I have been entrusted with. Of course, I still have much work to do, but setting my day with these intentions has genuinely helped me orient my outlook so that I can find and follow the path that I am called to.
