#humility

St John Chrysostom’s Homily on the Publican and the Pharisee, translated from the original Greek in PG 59, analyses the parable in Luke 18 by contrasting the Pharisee’s pride with the tax collector’s repentance, showing that sincere humility before God brings righteousness, whilst pride squanders hard-won virtues.

The hierodeacon Synesios of Dochiaru, an exceptional Athonite protopsalt of the nineteenth century, prayed to Saint Paraskevi to take away the gift that might endanger his salvation, and he lost his voice. Drawing on this account, the article reflects on the spiritual danger posed by personal virtues and achievements, calling for repentance not only for sins, but also for the gifts in which we take pride.

The text, taken from the book Do You Know Yourself? Spiritual Life and Psychological Problems, analyses the consequences of the gulf between one’s ideal image and one’s true self: the projection of one’s own faults onto others, psychological emptiness, self-contempt and dependence on the approval of others, proposing humility, repentance and divine grace as the only path to genuine healing.