Humility: 1

Every generation thinks itself to be the hub of the Universe. All great truths and issues are circulated through the lungs of me, mine, us, and they come out enriched by the oxygen of our self-centeredness and self-awareness.
I first came across Nostradamus in the 50’s. Most of the quatrains were interpreted as referring to mediaeval events or World War II or the Cold War. Indeed, so great was the impulse to interpret Nostradamus through the eyes of the present that I have often come across people who interpret the word “Hister” as “Hitler”. Since “Hister” was an old Latin word for the Danube River, the new interpretation was pretty much impossible before the 1930’s, at which time it became clear that the simple, uncomplicated, facile name of a river “Hister” was actually something else and old Nostradamus suffered from myopic far-seeing and prophecy.

Over the years, the interpretations of Nostradamus have changed to keep up with the times, the interpretations ascribed to events of WW II being changed into events of the Cold War or Vietnam War or whatever was in the mind of the translator/interpreter. Similarly the Book of Revelations, or Apocalypse, has been read and understood to apply to the reader and his or her generation and the end was coming soon. It is understandable since the language in the New Testament itself leads one to envisage a Second Coming not far off. How many generations have thought they will witness the end? Just about every one, I should think. Consider the concept of the Anti-Christ. At the present day, many have beliefs formed by scenarios of the Rapture and being left behind and the regime of the Anti-Christ. This would lead one to believe that the coming of the Anti-Christ is in the future. However, in 1552 Michael Servetus writes in his Christianismi Restitutio,

" With the heavenly kingdom restored to us, the wicked captivity of Babylon has been ended, and the Anti-Christ with his hosts destroyed.”

This may remind us that for a long time it was held by protesting Christians that the Pope was the Anti-Christ and the Church the whore of Babylon. If the Anti-Christ was destroyed 460 years ago, we should not be awaiting his coming. But we have to. We cannot control our self-centeredness. Humility is the opposite of self-centeredness.  

Humility is not other-centeredness. Humility is the silencing of the processes of the mind that see everything as centering about itself, the hub of the Universe. We have spoken before about a generation which believes in its own destruction. This belief is based on their own self-love and self-centrality. This belief is not based on the word of Jesus. It is not a revelation from God. It is their own self-love not able to let go of anything, even something as horrible as destruction. These are the arrogant; those who cannot let loose of anything. In the Magnificat we read that God will cast the mighty from their thrones and raise the lowly. The lowly, who could not hold anything, will inherit the Earth.