How do you try to make humility a practice?

 Humility in Lent - Ignatian Spirituality

Three kinds of humility

• To humble myself to total obedience to God.
• To be ready for honor or dishonor, poverty or wealth, or anything else for God.
• To desire poverty, dishonor, and even be a fool for God, since Christ was.

Pride is sneaky

At its root, self-objectification is a problem of pride. Pride is often thought of as a good thing in our modern society; we use it to denote admiration. I tell my kids I am proud of them, for example. Or I might say without embarrassment that I am proud of this book. But this connotation is relatively new. In almost all philosophical traditions, pride is a deadly vice that rots a person from the inside out. Buddhists use the word māna, which in Sanskrit refers to an inflated mind that disregards others in favor of the self and leads to one’s own suffering. Thomas Aquinas defined it as an excessive desire for one’s own excellence, leading to misery.[22] In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Satan is depicted as a victim of his terrible pride by being frozen from the waist down—fixed and in agony—in ice created by wind from the flapping of his grotesque, batlike wings. 

Pride is sneaky: it hides inside good things. Saint Augustine astutely observed that “every other kind of sin has to do with the commission of evil deeds, whereas pride lurks even in good works in order to destroy them.”[23] So true—work, which is a source of meaning and purpose, becomes workaholism, which hurts our relationships. Success, the fruit of excellence, becomes an addiction. All because of pride.

Brooks, Arthur C.. From Strength to Strength (pp. 56-57). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Humility is an elevation

 

Second Week of Lent

Matthew 23:1-12

Friends, today’s Gospel exposes the pride of the Pharisees and concludes with the prescription of humility. I want to reflect on this virtue. St. Augustine said that all of us, made from nothing, tend toward nothing. We can see this in our frailty and sin and mortality. St. Paul said, “What do you possess that you have not received? But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it?” To believe in God is to know these truths. To live them out is to live in the attitude of humility. Thomas Aquinas said humilitas veritas, meaning “humility is truth.” It is living out the deepest truth of things: God is God and we are not. Now, all of this sounds very clear when it’s stated in this abstract manner, but man is it hard to live out! In our fallen world, we forget so readily that we are creatures. We start to assume that we are gods, the center of the universe. The ego becomes a massive monkey on our backs, and it has to be fed and pampered constantly. What a liberation it is to let go of the ego! Do you see why humility is not a degradation but an elevation? DAILY GOSPEL REFLECTIONS FROM BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

His sublime self-denial

Through the pride that caused his disobedience, man severed his allegiance to God. The sovereign Lord, coequal with the Father, humbled Himself to the dust, becoming lovingly submissive "even to the death of the Cross."  Man willed to be absolutely self-sufficient, and God, to compensate for His creature's gross insubordination, nation, was "mocked and scourged and spat upon"; He "endured the Cross, despising its shame."

The necessary sequel of man's pride and disobedience was his self-indulgence. Man wills to make himself his only master; he wills to follow the tendencies of nature; he wills to extinguish the light of God in his soul. 

To satisfy for man's yielding to sinful pleasure, the divine Son became "a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity ... a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted." He was "led as a sheep to the slaughter," was "dumb as a lamb before his shearer and ... cut off out of the land of the living. How criminal was man's craven carnality, how perfect Christ's atonement through His sublime self-denial!

John A. Kane. How to Make a Good Confession: A Pocket Guide to Reconciliation With God (Kindle Locations 405-411). Kindle Edition. 

Confession

The fruitful confusion associated with Confession, which often prevents recourse to it, is an inestimable benefit. It overthrows our pride, the cause of all our sins; it deepens our humility, the foundation of all virtue, by making us share in Christ's unspeakable humiliations; it confounds us before one instead of millions.

John A. Kane. How to Make a Good Confession: A Pocket Guide to Reconciliation With God (Kindle Locations 365-367). Kindle Edition. 

Promise to be humble

JOYFUL MYSTERIES II. 

The Visitation 

By now, my little friend, you have no doubt learned to manage on your own. Joyfully keep Joseph and Mary company . . . and you will hear the traditions of the House of David. You will hear about Elizabeth and Zechariah, you will be moved by Joseph’s pure love, and your heart will pound whenever they mention the Child who will be born in Bethlehem. We walk in haste towards the mountains to a town of the tribe of Judah (Lk 1:39). We arrive. It is the house where John the Baptist is to be born. Elizabeth gratefully hails the mother of her Redeemer: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord?” (Lk 1:42-43). The unborn Baptist quivers . . . (Lk 1:41). Mary’s humility pours forth in the Magnificat . . . . And you and I, who are proud—who were proud—promise to be humble.

Escriva, Josemaria; Escriva, St. Josemaria. Praying the Holy Rosary with St. Josemaria Escriva: (St. Josemaria Institute) (p. 17). Josemaria Institute. Kindle Edition. 

The deception of vain confidence

 

Today's Meditation “It almost always happens that interior sentiments of pride precede the commission of grievous sins. Peter was not aware of his own weakness. He preferred himself before others; he trusted in himself as though he were incapable of sinning, boasting that no temptation would separate him from Jesus. He would not even believe the assurance of his Divine Master, that he would deny him thrice. Deceived by this vain confidence in his own strength, he neglects to pray, and to have recourse to God; and God, in His justice, permits him to fall, in punishment of his pride. There is nothing more dangerous than to confide in our own strength, and trust to feelings of fervor. We are full of malice, and capable of committing the most enormous crimes, unless God supports us.” —Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus, p. 85-86 The School of Jesus Crucified

An Excerpt From The School of Jesus Crucified