IN JANUARY, I was tasked with delivering a pep talk for our agency as part of our Monday flag-raising ceremony. It was just a few days before the historic pastoral visit of Pope Francis to our country. Because of this, I chose to discuss the very virtue the "People’s Pope" is most known for: humility.
Pope Francis embodies deep humility. To him, humility means intentionally spending time with the people we find hard to live with—those we probably like the least. He actively denounced self-importance when he preferred a modest, two-room residence over the grand papal apartment in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. He showed it again when he waited in line with regular employees at the Vatican canteen, and when he gave up his private chauffeur to take the bus to work.
When we speak of humility through the lens of the Pope’s examples, it is easy to sound deeply religious, as if preaching church doctrine. And why not? Humility is considered the mother of all virtues, and one of the most important lessons Jesus Christ imparted to his disciples, believers, and all present-day Christians. Scripture teaches us that God cannot work through us if we are consumed by pride.
The word humility comes from the Latin root humus, meaning "earth" or literally "on the ground." St. Thomas Aquinas noted that humility "consists in keeping oneself within one’s own bounds, not reaching out to things above one, but submitting to one’s superior." [1] This aligns perfectly with the Catholic Church's definition: humility, in a higher and ethical sense, is that by which a person has a modest estimate of their own worth and submits themselves to others.
