What Does Catholicism Say About Excessive Self-Interest?
“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
— John 15:13 (RSV)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…. Love is … not boastful; it is not arrogant.
— 1 Corinthians 13:1, 4-5 (RSV)
Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
— 1 Corinthians 10:24 (RSV)
It is always the secure who are humble.
— G. K. Chesterton
Stay quiet with God. Do not spend your time in useless chatter…. Do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself.
— St. Charles Borromeo
The only reason why the Immaculate permits us to fall is to cure us from our self-conceit, from our pride, to make us humble and thus make us docile to the divine graces.
— St. Maximilian Kolbe
It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
— St. Augustine
It is better for you to have little than to have much which may become the source of pride.
— Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
There never can have been, and never can be, and there never shall be any sin without pride.
— St. Augustine
We put pride into everything, like salt.
— St. John Vianney
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How Do We Break Away From the Sin, or Habit, of Excessive Self-Interest?
Listen: “Listen” is the first word of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict, and it is the word whose application can speak to a multitude of sins, because if we are listening, we are not talking. If we are listening, we are mindful not of ourselves but of our surroundings. When we are listening, we are hearing and being present to the person who is before us. When we are truly present to others, we find ourselves relieved of the burden of ourselves, and often we discover that our own thoughts need adjusting, thanks to what we have heard.
Limit time on social media: Nothing so trains us to obsess over ourselves, and how others perceive us, or to stew over our own musings, as social media. Twitter encourages us to think of a brief, under-thought pronouncement delivered w/unpunctuated wrds like dis as something so wise and witty that we feel comfortable barging into the conversations of others to share it. Facebook tells us that our every thought is a likable one, our children are, at all times, too adorable for words, and our “friends” think we are absolutely brilliant, for as long as we agree with them. The temptation to remain agreeable, keep your thoughts in the acceptable box, and keep serving up the praise-fodder is enormous and seductive. How can you emerge from spending a few hours, every day, in such an environment and not develop an excessive sense of your imprint on the world, and the wonderfulness that is you?
Learn to make a daily examen: The Ignatian practice of a daily examen is an antidote to the superficial uplift we find on social media; it allows us to still focus upon ourselves, but in a more analytical and balanced way. It is brief spiritual exercise devised by St. Ignatius of Loyola that can help you become refocused on what matters, and spiritually refreshed and renewed. Sitting quietly in a comfortable (but not nap-encouraging) position, you work your way through five steps:
1. You bring yourself into awareness of God’s presence by thanking him for what you noticed during the day that made you aware of his grace. Perhaps your attention was captured by birdsong, or a beautiful sunrise, and you have a momentary sense of God’s grandeur. Perhaps you wondered at your children and realized that they all are precisely the people you met at their birth, personalities already intact, and you saw God’s design in their individuality. Whatever touched you, remember it, and express thanks to God.
2. Go over the day, asking God to make you aware of where he had especially been with you.
3. Consider how you felt over the course of the day — where you had lost your temper, or felt left out, or confused, or really joyful. This is also a time to be honest with God, and with yourself, about “what I have done and … what I have failed to do.” As in maybe you really did spend way too much time on Facebook and failed to pay attention to something someone you love was saying to you. Maybe you didn’t listen well.
4. Ask forgiveness for your failings and for your sins, little and bigger. If one particular moment stands out, ask God to give you wisdom on that matter so that you might learn from it. Be eager for instruction. We can never go wrong by echoing Solomon’s prayer for “an understanding heart.”
5. Ask for the graces to do better tomorrow, and let God know that you gratefully look forward to a new day.
An examen is not terribly time-consuming. St. Benedict might have said of the examen that it “contains nothing harsh or burdensome” because it is merely a review of the day between you and God, but it is a review that covers all of the spiritual bases: it begins not with a “please” but with a “thank you,” and then manages an apology where needed before asking for anything more. Taking these 10 or 15 minutes a day to meet and talk to God is an amazingly simple yet powerful way to increase our capacity for mindfulness, which will make us better aware of other people.
That will, in short order, lessen the sinful excesses of our own self-interest.
Pray (This prayer or your own)
Heavenly Father, your psalmist begged, “Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth; / keep watch at the door of my lips!” (Ps 141:3). So often our mouths and our minds are reckless, running by the full force of our egos. We are so interested in being seen, and noticed, and thought well of by others, that we ironically render ourselves unable to see those very same people — and then, by our thoughtlessness, we injure them; we use them as sounding boards or reflecting mirrors, rather than respecting the dignity with which you have endowed their humanity. Please help me to keep a watch on my own excesses, that I may be more eager to see than to be seen; more willing to hear than to be heard — all that your creation may be better served. In Christ’s name, I pray. Amen.
Chapter Three
Self-Neglect
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin As self-neglecting.— Henry V, Act II, Scene IV
Flannery O’ Connor once proclaimed that “half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it.” As I demonstrated in the chapter on procrastination, she is quite right. Of all the chapters I have desperately tried to avoid writing for this book, I have felt real revulsion at the prospect of pulling this one from my brain because it touches on too many home truths. I’ve always said self-effacement is a much easier discipline than facing the self.
A couple of years ago, discussing a public figure with a young Catholic writer, I wondered about whether
