To start, I was raised Catholic but started to stray from the Church as I felt like Catholicism made me feel too guilty about who I am and what I do.

However, I've started coming back around but I'm tussling with the whole ambiguity that seems to come from Catholicism regarding self-love/esteem/confidence and pride...which is obviously a sin.

I've read writings that said we as Christians shouldn't have self-esteem as it's just a disguised version of pride, and on the other hand, I've read stuff where God wants us to have a healthy level of self-esteem and confidence.

I think of the 2 virtues of Diligence and Kindness..which basically say never give up, work hard, and maintain a positive attitude. I also think of Eph 5:28-29.

It just puzzles me to think self-esteem as a veiled version of pride...I wouldn't think God would want us to have low self-esteem or confidence and have depressed people.

What are your thoughts?

1) Nothing wrong with doing your best, with being proud of your results (looking good, doing good work, making money). Issue is when it gets in the way of you loving others. Much like sex, money, power- it is all how you use it.

2) Regarding Catholic guilt. Think of the Rules- as loving guide rails- to help keep you on the road. No one is perfect other than Jesus and Mary (by the grace from her son, her lord and savior), don't beat yourself up. Do your best, turn to the lord, pray often and repent and change your ways when you mess up. If you are following the rules and not loving God and neighbor then you got it all wrong.

Allen,

You are God's beloved. That is where your sense of pride can and should come from. No one can take that away from you.

All that you are, and all that you can accomplish, are gifts from God. Do everything that you do with all of your heart, as serving the Lord, and not men. Eat, drink, and find enjoyment in your toil. Being productive is a gift to mankind, as our current comfortable and relatively peaceful way of life was built on the toil of generations of man that will not enjoy all of the fruits of their labor. You need to contribute too.

I think that Jesus and the wisdom literature support the idea that you shouldn't do anything half-heartedly, and that requires confidence that you can do a good job; often confidence that you know what is best or more than someone else that is speaking up. Don't be afraid to tell the truth with conviction. That should not be confused with pride.

But if you let your wealth / accomplishments / status make you think that you are any more important than any other of God's beloved, you are deceiving yourself.

I look at it as a question of what is the source of your self-esteem/pride. Is it in your accomplishments or what you've done, or is it in the knowledge of the fact that you are fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator?

I am proud of my accomplishments. However, I can distinguish that though I was given the ability by God, it was I who did it.

So yes, it is self-esteem, but it is also tempered with gratitude and humility.

Not all pride is bad. God expects us to do as good a job as we can. It is the right things to do. But it is more than that. He wants us to lead our lives in such a way that it brings Him glory. If we do that, people will want to have what we have (which is a relationship with Jesus Christ). It is religious pride that God hates. Religious pride occurs when we start comparing ourselves to others. Never a good thing. The Pharisees had religious pride. They thought they were better than everyone one else because they lived their lives by the law and thought that would save them. Their problem was that they never took the law and moved it from their heads to their hearts. Jesus told the Pharisees they were going to hell.

Bottom Line: Not all pride is bad. You can take pride in how you do things. You cannot compare yourself to others and take pride that you are better than them. Keep your eyes on Jesus and not on others and you will be fine.

Now, lets talk about humility. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Having humility is not the same as having low esteem. God wants us to walk humbly before Him. To have humility is simply realizing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We know that we owe our existence and everything we have to Him. To have low self esteem means that we think God made a mistake. He gave others more than He gave us. Never compare yourself to others.

Bottom Line: Humility is thinking of ourselves less and low self esteem is thinking less of ourselves.

Peace

Thank you all for the responses..it is definitely helping me clear up the ambiguity.

I guess the part I struggle to understand, when it comes to self-confidence, is every day things. I'd like to think I'm a good person in that I try my best to be. Sure I've made my share of mistakes and I've hurt others deeply in my life, but I've grown from that and I feel I should carry on without those past transgressions haunting me. I'm only 25.

I've even read some religious web pages that say we shouldn't have self esteem because we are sinners blah blah blah.

I digress, but certain questions pop into my head like "what if I see a beautiful girl and want to talk to her? I know I'm good looking, have charm, and funny so I know I'll make a good impression." Is that not some sort of conceited sinful pride?

I understand and accept my personal flaws and all, but I guess I'm trying to figure out if knowing you're a good person with a lot of a positive attributes jumps into sinful pride?

Quote:

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I digress, but certain questions pop into my head like "what if I see a beautiful girl and want to talk to her? I know I'm good looking, have charm, and funny so I know I'll make a good impression." Is that not some sort of conceited sinful pride?

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Well, are you? Is it necessarily prideful if those three things are true?

I know I have all three of those (ok, my charm is quirky) but I know I am not the best looking, most charming, and funny guy in most rooms. However, I do not derive my sense of self-worth from possessing those three attributes to some degree.

Allen Gamble said:

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I digress, but certain questions pop into my head like "what if I see a beautiful girl and want to talk to her? I know I'm good looking, have charm, and funny so I know I'll make a good impression." Is that not some sort of conceited sinful pride?

I understand and accept my personal flaws and all, but I guess I'm trying to figure out if knowing you're a good person with a lot of a positive attributes jumps into sinful pride?

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Yes it does.


You should approach life thinking of yourself as dull, ugly, and boring.





Then you can make an appointment with me and we'll talk about your depression and hook you up with some meds so you can feel you're a good person with a lot of positive attributes.

Edit: for you're

Believe me, I'm nowhere near that line of thinking.

All I'm doing is just being skeptical of what I've read from various religious sites especially from certain well-known ministers, pastors, and Catholic priests.

Going back to my original post, this is why I was originally drifting from Catholicism because sometimes I got this vibe from many priests or other Catholic leaders that even said "lot's of successful people had low self-esteem and thus you don't need self-esteem." Basically we're rotten sinners and any sort of self-confidence is disguised pride. I don't like to think I have to carry a load of guilt for all my life.

Not depressed, but just wanted to hear what other fellow Catholics/other groups thought of this kind of thing.

Christian humility is about embracing your position in respect to God. From there you will naturally find yourself in a good position with your fellow man.

If you don't start there, it's irrelevant. This is the root. Don't confuse secular humility and the ideas of self-esteem and worth etc with that of spiritual humility.

Most problems with pride start when we forget that everyone else in world is also God's beloved, and that makes them just as special as you are.

Allen Gamble said:

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Believe me, I'm nowhere near that line of thinking.

All I'm doing is just being skeptical of what I've read from various religious sites especially from certain well-known ministers, pastors, and Catholic priests.

Going back to my original post, this is why I was originally drifting from Catholicism because sometimes I got this vibe from many priests or other Catholic leaders that even said "lot's of successful people had low self-esteem and thus you don't need self-esteem." Basically we're rotten sinners and any sort of self-confidence is disguised pride. I don't like to think I have to carry a load of guilt for all my life.

Not depressed, but just wanted to hear what other fellow Catholics/other groups thought of this kind of thing.

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I did not presume you do be anything.

You're talking about a healthy self-esteem, without which could lead to feelings of low self-worth and depression. The fact that you're even thinking of it refutes any narcissistic tendency or extensive self-love.

So, what's the opposite of a healthy self-esteem? Or, how would one look if "you don't need self-esteem"?

Maybe my response was extreme, but it's my contention that a healthy self-esteem is necessary for self-actualization (Maslow's hierarchy of needs). The "successful people with low self-esteem" were probably tormented throughout life in some way.

Would you as a parent want your child to think positively of themselves or go through life under the shadow of self-doubt, and a negative view of themselves and their abilities?

How much more would a Heavenly Father want his children to view themselves and their lives in a healthy manner?

The sin of Pride is simply the opposite of humility.

I like the Litany of Humility. I think it explains what is meant by pride.

Quote:

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From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should

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I think that prayer points out one thing in particular. If you are afraid of something someone might say or do to you, it probably means you have sinful pride.

Yeah, I think that's a bit extreme. I have always heard about catholic guilt and reading that I can totally see it.

I do think identifying pride as an antipole to humility is useful. All of the root sins are really perversions of virtues.

When I think of humility, I think of the prayer of St Ephraim:

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.

I've never understood what people mean when they say "Catholic guilt".

Suggestions that the desire to be love and approved are something to be freed from is a start.

I understand what that litany is getting at but you need to make a distinction between healthy normal desire to be loved and a desire to be loved taking primacy over our faithfulness to God. That's implied but not mentioned...and people can get confused by things like that.

k2aggie07 said:

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Suggestions that the desire to be love and approved are something to be freed from is a start.

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I'm not sure we don't need to be delivered from a desire to be loved and approved. A desire to be loved doesn't help me to better love God and neighbor, does it? If I harbor a desire to be loved, I might spend energy doing things that I think will make others love me. If I am freed from the desire of being loved, I think I'm more free to love God.

Maybe by Catholic guilt people are referring to scrupulosity?

Hm.. In orthodox patristic psychology we talk about the passions quite a bit. Our human passions are spoken of by St Paul in Romans 7. The passions are often talked about as bad (some prayers pray to be freed from them) but they are natural to us. So, just like our will, in the natural state they are not bad - nothing created naturally by God is bad. Being freed from our passions is not to not have them but to have them in their natural (good/purified) state.

Can you have a holy desire to be loved or approved or praised? Yes, of course. St Paul writes about it in Gal 1 and 1 Thess 2, 2 Cor 5. We all should want to be told well done good and faithful servant. So we don't need to be freed from these normal human passions but instead from corrupted and sinful passions. That's the nuance that is missing - and if it's not explained properly, people will perhaps end up thinking we need to be like stoics, emotionless robots "freed" from emotion good and bad. But of course this isn't true. Joy is not the absence of emotion and passion and desire. It's the proper satisfaction of those in their source in God.

We need to be truly, naturally human, the way we were meant to be. And this is only found in our Creator, Christ. He doesn't strip us of our humanity, or human nature, but of the fallen nature that we struggle with.

Does that make sense?

Drum5343 said:

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I've never understood what people mean when they say "Catholic guilt".

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Can mean many things, but most common- folks know right from wrong , they were taught correctly in their Catholic faith and yet they ignore these teaching and do what they want. Catholics (as all Christians) are called to Love- to be active in their faith. Lack of action is also wrong. Catholic Confesssion prayer verse- "forgive me for what I have done and what I have failed to do".

See Cafeteria Catholics- pick and choose what they want. Just one example- if all Catholics voted against Abortion- I believe it would no longer be " the key issue for the Democratic Party".

In short it is your "well formed" - debatable for Cafeteria Catholics"conscience getting at you. People make a joke of it.

k2aggie07 said:

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Can you have a holy desire to be loved or approved or praised? Yes, of course. St Paul writes about it in Gal 1 and 1 Thess 2, 2 Cor 5. We all should want to be told well done good and faithful servant

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You're right. A desire to be approved by God is a proper desire. Maybe the litany I shared should be revised, though not by me.

Quote:

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We need to be truly, naturally human, the way we were meant to be. And this is only found in our Creator, Christ. He doesn't strip us of our humanity, or human nature, but of the fallen nature that we struggle with.

Does that make sense?

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It does, and I completely agree that Jesus does not strip our humanity, but completes it.

Still, though, I'll continue to pray that particular litany because I'm mature enough to know what the author probably meant by it.

No doubt. It's just important that we add the implied (by men) to the end, mentally.

In short, we are made in God's image and likeness. We are told to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If you cannot look in the mirror and love who you see, then there is no way you can love your neighbor as you should. However you cannot love the creation more than the creator.