The Cunning of Pride

"Deep within every human heart - unless it has been profoundly purified - there lurks a sly, unrecognized cunning, all too well skilled in self-deception and evasion.  This is the total adversary of belief.  It is the cunning of pride, of self-possession, of self-sufficiency.  To live fully out of our inheritance...strikes a deadly blow at human pride...

"Each of us has the choice either to live by faith or to live by 'flesh'.  To live by 'flesh' is to live within the limits of our own potential, within the limits of our our perception and understanding, according to how things seem and feel, according to our natural experience.  It is instinctive to live thus, taking for granted that our conscious experience is to be trusted, that it is the way things really are... We want to remain on this level because it is within our grasp...we are unaware of how much of our life is lived from self, relying on self and not on faith in the Son of Man. We cannot rid ourselves of this deeply rooted pride and self-possession by our own strength.  Only the Holy Spirit of the Crucified and Risen One can effect it, and this he is indeed always trying to do.  But we must recognize his work and respond 'Amen'."  --Sr. Ruth Burrows, OCD, quoted in Magnificat, p. 113-4