Listen

Are any of you wise and understanding? Show that your actions are good with a humble lifestyle that comes from wisdom. However, if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, then stop bragging and living in ways that deny the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above. Instead, it is from the earth, natural and demonic. Wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and everything that is evil.

James 3:13-16

Think

“What can sin do where there is penitence? And of what use is love where there is pride?”

These words, spoken by Abba Elias of Egypt, a monk who lived and labored for the Lord hundreds of years ago, come from someone striving for what St. James calls a “humble lifestyle that comes from wisdom” (v. 13). Putting aside pride and ambition, people like Elias go without food and water for days and without sleep for weeks or longer to put self aside to know God.

Is this extreme example of an ascetic lifestyle for everyone? Certainly not; however, we must daily pray for the strength and help we need to live humble lifestyles born out of wisdom. By even trying to live in such a way, even if we fail and fall repeatedly, God will see our attempts to put pride aside in pursuit of wisdom and will bless our efforts.

Sarah Boatwright

Pray

Thank you for today, Lord, and for this chance to pray. Please help me to live humbly and wisely. Amen.

Go

A candle flickers and prayers arise.

Our Lord, who is with us in prayer,

stays close after the “Amen,”

and will guide us,

who are blinded by ignorance and darkness,

into wisdom and light.