Mary the Perfect Model of Humility

The following is an edited excerpt from some of Fr. Hardon's writings on the Eucharist. In this particular article he shows how Mary was humble because she carried God within and tries to show us that the way for us to acquire and receive this divine virtue is through the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ. Here it goes:

Mary practiced to an eminent degree the virtue of humility. At the Annunciation, she told the Angel, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." In the Magnificat, she repeated the same term except she spoke of the lowliness of His handmaid to make sure nobody misunderstood what she meant by "handmaid." She told of how the Lord scatters the proud and exalts the lowly.
There are two kinds of exaltation: self-exaltation and divine exaltation. The greatest danger on earth is self-exaltation, because then we call down on ourselves the curse of God. But the condition for divine exaltation is lowly, Marian humility. She declared that the Lord fills the hungry (those who admit their emptiness) with good things. Hunger in the Bible means emptiness not only of the body, but a symbol of the admitted emptiness of everything. By ourselves, we are emptiness, a vacuum. But we must admit that we are a vacuum, or we shall not be filled by the goodness of God. We must admit and constantly confess our emptiness, which is another word for humility.
Mary declared how grateful she was that the Lord had done so much for Israel and His servant. Humility serves. Humility waits on others. Humility responds to the bidding of the one whom it serves. This is the mother of God, but only because she is also the lowly handmaid of the Lord. The more gifted a person, the more prone that person is to pride. Possession of anything naturally generates pride. And not only does possession generate pride, but the greater the possession the more pride it generates. Wealth of any kind inflates the human heart. The more a person has of physical or mental or moral or even spiritual riches, the harder it is for that person to be humble. How are we to be humble? How can we possess without being proud? Only through being in the presence of Jesus Christ.
We can consider the unspeakable humility of God not only in the Incarnation when He appeared as man, but also in remaining on earth in the Holy Eucharist. This is double humility: the humility of hiding His divinity as He did during His visible stay on earth and the divine humility in hiding even His humanity in the Holy Eucharist. He not only gives us the example of how humble we should be, but through Him, we receive the most fundamental grace we need in life: the grace of humility.
No matter what we possess, it tends to induce us to pride, and the more we have, the more tempted we are to be proud. But it's not just quantitative possession; it is qualitative possession that inclines to pride. And the highest possession we can have is sanctity. Dear God, how can I stay humble and grow in sanctity? This was the greatest temptation of the mystics. One does not possess the close union with God that saints like Catherine of Siena or Theresa of Avila or John of the Cross enjoyed without being tempted by pride. It's tempting to look down on "those lower mortals."
But Mary's humility is a paradox. The most gifted creature ever produced by the Creator was also the lowliest in her own eyes. That is the key to humility: seeing everything we are, everything we have, everything we hope to become, everything we hope to achieve or possess – seeing everything as a free, undeserved and totally gratuitous gift from God. But this is possible only by the grace with which the God who became man provides us. The same grace He provided Mary by His Real Presence with her, He provides by His Real Presence with us today. There's no more basic reason for the Real Presence on earth of Jesus Christ than to provide us with the humanly impossible grace of humility.

St. Teresa of Avila and Spiritual Growth

St. Teresa of Avila one of the greatest mystics in the Catholic Church left us a profound treasure of spiritual heritage regarding the ways to grow in the spiritual life. For those whom Teresa considered beginners she always warned them about the necessity to grow in prayer and self-knowledge. St. Teresa likens the prayer life to tending a garden. The garden represents the heart, planted by the Lord but tended by us. Service for the Master is a great honour and delight. He walks there often and delights in the flowers which symbolize our developing virtues. Developing our prayer life is not easy, and Teresa acknowledges that the beginning stages require some hard labour, which she likens to watering a garden by drawing buckets from a well. We need to train ourselves in the ways of prayer but, just as in any discipline, rewards are sure to follow as we build upon sound instruction. With growth the required labour progressively lessens until, in the highest form of prayer, God pours out blessings as the rain falls from heaven, requiring no effort at all from the gardener.
Regarding self-knowledge she speaks about the need for humility in the First Mansion of the Interior Castle, Chapter 2, she says "(First Mansion, Chapter 2): "I do not know whether I have put this clearly; self-knowledge is of such consequence that I would not have you careless of it, though you may be lifted to heaven in prayer, because while on earth nothing is more needful than humility. Therefore, I repeat, not only a good way, but the best of all ways, is to endeavour to enter first by the room where humility is practised, which is far better than at once rushing on to the others. This is the right road;—if we know how easy and safe it is to walk by it, why ask for wings with which to fly? Let us rather try to learn how to advance quickly. I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God, for, beholding His greatness we are struck by our own baseness, His purity shows our foulness, and by meditating on His humility we find how very far we are from being humble."

Humbly Regard Others as More Important than Yourselves

One interesting passage of Scripture that has challenged me a lot through my last years has been the following " Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others" (Phil 2:3-4). Perhaps my difficulties stem from my own pride and my failure to observe and even understand fully what this passage is asking of me. I find the whole thing challenging, and the challenge grows as these verses are followed by the invitation to have the same mind and attitude of Christ. Wow, that is a real challenge. But the part that I have found a real difficulty even in understanding it is the one that says humbly regard others as more important than yourselves. Perhaps my difficulties came from the awareness that no two people have the same qualities and gifts, and one can truly say that this person possesses these qualities and this other person does not. So it is possible to compare at least demonstrable qualities. However, I am also aware that it is not possible to judge the interior life of a soul, and only God can do that. Only God can determine who will have the highest degree of glory in the life to come. As far as we are concerned, it seems to me, the first task is to avoid comparisons to begin with. In fact Jesus Christ gives us an apparent paradox for those who like to be first, when He says: "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Mat 18:4). So you in order to go high you have to go low, or as Scripture says "whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Mat 23:12). So here I had to look at Christ and His humility, Christ certainly knew that He was superior to others ontologically, spiritually, morally, etc. yet, He came and humbly regarded every one of us as superior to Him, and for that reason He came to serve each of us and even gave His life for each one of us. That is humility. And I understood that it is not a matter of being higher and lower than other people, it is not a matter of comparisons, it is a matter of considering every single human being on the face of the earth as superior to me, so that I can indeed have the same attitude of Christ who came to serve ALL, without making distinctions at all. The words "consider others as more important" or superior, it is not a statement of fact, only God knows that, but it is a statement about an ATTITUDE. This means that I will freely choose to look at others as superior to me so that I can serve them with joy and readily, in fact, I consider each person as worthy of my service, so that I can live what Scripture says, "each looking out not for his own interests, but everyone for those of others" (Phil 2:4). Now the complete grace is not just to understand it, but also to live it out, day in and day out. Now pray for me :-)