The Sin of Pride

Well, everyone knew we’d cap off this series with the sin of pride, and it’s important to distinguish between pride from vainglory, which we discussed last week. Vainglory is focused on making other people think we’re great: It leads us to really, really care about what other people think of us. Pride is being certain that we are great, and that we don’t need any help or correction in how we live our life. It means that we fall to the devil’s primordial temptation, described in the book of Genesis, that we can make ourselves like God.

By rejecting a relationship with our Creator and seeking to go our own way, we cripple our ability to live as his children, even if outwardly our lives look fine—particularly by the world’s standards. There is even a form of spiritual pride that sees our avoidance of (other) sins as a sign of how great we are, and that deludes us into thinking we are fine without God’s grace.

Whenever we think we know better than God, we are suffering from pride. Now we live in an internet culture that tells us we don’t need to rely on others. We think we can fully educate ourselves on any topic by reading a couple articles on Wikipedia, accurately self-diagnose by googling our symptoms, and prove our opinions are correct by cherry-picking what viewpoints we consume in our newsfeed.

We are urged to “define [our] own concept of existence” and to substitute our own judgement for the timeless teaching of the Gospels and the wisdom of the Church, especially when that teaching interferes with our desires. This has led, of course, to the staggering cacophony of competing identities (and identity groups) that confused individuals grasp on to in order to bring meaning to their difficult lives.

We can’t make ourselves truly autonomous, and once we separate ourselves from union with God and communion with the Church, we unite with things that aren’t God and seek communion with anything that provides some semblance of belonging.

We never seem to learn—and yet, our Father is waiting for us, inviting us to return to his table. Let us arise and come back to him.

Challenge: Read the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). Where are you in that spiritual journey?