THE DANGERS OF VAINGLORY.
All glory is due to God only for He is the source of all beauty, goodness, truth, and being we find in the entire creation. All that we are and all that we have come from God as gifts. In His infinite goodness and love, God wanted to share with us and make us partakers of His Life because He wants us to be truly happy. If we are in this world, it is due to God, and it is to give glory to God through our thoughts, words, actions…our life.
Vainglory is a vice leading one to excessively show with disordered pleasure and pride one’s achievements.
- It involves attributing to one’s self the glory and merit which in reality and in the end do not pertain to him.
- It could also lead one to morbidly seek the esteem, praise, and admiration of others.
All of us are exposed to the temptation of vainglory and its dangers, for the devil always takes advantage of our self-love to trample God and others in our life. Below you have an excerpt with quotes from St. Josemaria which would help us rectify everytime vainglory looms to separate us from God.
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We do not live for the world, nor for our honour, but for God’s honour, for God’s glory, for God’s service. That is what moves us! (St. Josemaria). We have given ourselves entirely to God, and, along with our life, we have also surrendered to him our honour, our right to be praised or thanked. Deo omnis gloria. -All glory to God. -This is a categorical confession of our nothingness. He, Jesus, is everything. We, without Him, are worth nothing: nothing. (St. Josemaria).
Our vainglory would be just that: vain glory; it would be a sacrilegious robbery: the “I” should not appear anywhere. (St. Josemaria). We need to be vigilant, because we tend to seek the praise of other people and, as St John Chrysostom says, with that attitude in your soul, with your love of vainglory, even if you went out to live in barren lands, you would be barren of all virtue. Vanity can also creep into the interior life and rob us of the merit of good works. Where the moth does not destroy, nor the thief enter, vainglory scatters and lays waste. This is the moth of our treasures, the thief of our riches in heaven, which robs us of those inviolable goods. And St. Josemaria reminded us emphatically: Rectify, rectify. -What a poor show if your victory were to be made worthless by your having acted from human motives!
Take care, do not let yourself be captured by the ardour of vainglory, St Jerome advises us. “How can you believe,” says Jesus, “who receive glory from one another?” Do you see? This evil is so great, that he who has it cannot believe. On the contrary, let us say: “You are my glory,” and “let him who boasts, boast of the Lord…” When you give alms, let God alone see it. When you fast, let your face be happy. Let your clothing be neither over-neat, nor dirty. Try not to attract attention, so that passers-by do not stop to point you out … You should appear to be neither overly pious in aspect, nor more humble than you are, lest, in fleeing from glory, you go in search of it.
If we see that there are good things in our life, we should thank God for it. We are simply instruments in his hands. Humility like this will enable us to act with the rectitude of the army commander spoken of in Sacred Scripture: he had laid siege to a town for a long time, and was on the point of taking it, when he called upon King David to come and capture it, lest I take the city, and it be called by my name. Let us beware of the pride which continually stalks us to rob us of the fruit of our works. Non nobis. Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. All the glory for you, Lord. (St. Josemaria).
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Source: Book of Meditations (private collection)
Dear brethren in Christ, with the help of the grace of God and the intercession of Mother Mary, may we seek only Gods glory and rectify our intention everytime vainglory seeps into our actions.
