How do we praise and thank God for our being?
First, by understanding it: recognizing our being for what it is and appreciating it. Then by expressing
that in praise
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. For it was you
who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… Lead me
along the path of everlasting life (from Psalm 139:13).
There are four “ingredients” we have to identify in order to
know ourselves (or anything else on earth) as a “being.” In metaphysics they
are called the “four causes” of being. But the word is deceptive, implying that
any one of them could exist by itself, which is a contradiction, since all four
are required for a being to exist. (We are not talking about the Being of God
here). A better word for them is “principles,” meaning “that which explains
something else.” Their technical names are “material, formal, efficient and
final cause.”
What follows is perfectly obvious to anyone who “calls a
spade a spade.”
The first “ingredient” is “matter.” Stuff. Humans have bodies, are made of something. We “call
a spade a spade” when we can see it, touch it, pick it up. When there is
something “out there.”
Humans can only make things out of something (matter) that
already exists. When God makes something out of nothing, causing the matter
itself to exist, we call that “creation.” Ultimately, everything on earth,
including ourselves, comes from nothing and is only kept from reverting to
nothingness by God’s ongoing act of creation. God says, “Let it beeee…” and we exist as long as God holds the note. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
This is the fundamental reason for humility. Bellarmine says
there is nothing in humans they can boast about, as if they had not received it
from God. If a cedar chest could speak, it could say to the woodworker, “I owe
my shape to you, but not my material. What I have of myself is more precious
than what I received from you.” But no one could say this to God the Creator.
Humans have nothing from themselves, and in themselves are absolutely nothing.
St. Paul wrote: “If those who are nothing think they are something, they
deceive themselves. What do you have that you did not receive? And if you
received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (Galatians 6:3; 1Corinthians
4:7).
We can’t imagine “nothingness,” but it is worth thinking
about. If I hold my hand in front of my face, I should be aware that it has no
more existence in itself than an image projected on a movie screen. If someone
turns off the projector, it doesn’t just disappear or go somewhere else; it
simply ceases to exist. Returns to nothingness. That is what would happen to us
if God stopped saying “Beee…”
Saint Robert concludes:
Therefore, my soul, if you are wise, always take the last
place. Do not steal the glory of God. Go down into you own nothingness – that
alone is yours – and the whole world will not be able to lift you up to pride.
And because this precious virtue of true humility had
already disappeared from the world and could not be found either in the books
of the philosophers or in the cultures of countries, the Teacher of humility
came down from heaven. And though he was by nature God, equal to the Father,
“he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the
point of death – even death on a cross” (Philippians
2:7).
And he said to the human race, “Learn
from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls” (Matthew 11:29).
To go deep is to go down. If we go deeply into our being,
the bottom line is nothingness. This is the truth of our being. We can find
peace in recognizing that
“Humility” is “to be peaceful with the truth.” If we are
peaceful with the truth of our nothingness, we will find rest for our souls.
