Humility

If a person has humility, it means that they treat other people with respect.

They freely listen to someone before trying to resolve their problems.

They put themselves at someone else’s service.

Having humility does not mean that you have an inferiority complex, that you have a poor image of yourself, that you are not confident, or that you hide your talents in order to make someone else feel better.

It just means that you turn away from your selfishness and try to enter into the other person’s world.

A person with humility tries to understand another person’s sufferings and joys.

If the other person opens up to them, they keep their secrets and do not judge the person or spread gossip about them.

When someone is speaking to them, they pay attention and try to see the other person’s point of view.

They try to understand what the other person is really saying, even if their own life is very different from that person’s.

Instead of quickly saying, “I know how to get you back on your feet, I’ll tell you what to do...”

...they remain open and ask God to help them find the right pathway.

A humble person does not always have to be right.

The attitude of humility comes from God’s power within us. It helps us speak at the right moment, have good intentions, and ask God for the right words.

If a person has humility, they will not feel superior to someone else just because they are poor or they have a disability.

Instead, the person with humility will think, “This person could have something unique to say, that I do not even suspect. They may be able to teach me something very good that I will never forget.”

This is why people with humility will even go so far as to say that poor people are “their masters”-- because they have experienced that a poor person can preach to them, just by being there.

Often times a poor person will need a boost in confidence.

A humble person will keep watching out for signs of the other person’s hopes or dreams as they are telling their story.

If the person feels understood, it then becomes possible to begin something with them.

A person with humility will not say, “Oh, the same thing happened to me once, let me tell you all about how I solved my problem and got over it.” A humble person tries not to make hurtful comparisons.

It is human nature to make ourselves look good, to criticize, to want to have power over other people, and to prove that we are right.

Humility is when we avoid all this, out of love for the other person.

A person mostly needs to be acknowledged and listened to, before being helped.

The way that a person presents themselves to us depends a lot on our attitude towards them.

So it is best to practice humility, always reminding ourselves to approach another person in faith and recognize the presence of God in them.

brought to you by The Vincentians based on VincentWiki article “The Spirituality of the Daughters of Charity” by Sr. Anne Prévost, DC