The Litany of Humility

The Litany of Humility is traditionally attributed to Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val (1865–1930). He was born at the Spanish Embassy in London and became Secretary of State to Pope St. Pius X in 1903, at the age of thirty-eight. He is said to have prayed the litany every day after Mass. His cause for beatification was opened in 1953, and the Church calls him a Servant of God.

The honest answer, though, is that nobody knows who wrote it. The earliest printing we could find predates him. In 1867, when Merry del Val was a toddler, a Dublin prayer book called The Fervent Adorer printed a “Litany to Obtain Holy Humility.” Its first half is almost word for word the one on this page: “From the desire of being esteemed … From the fear of being humbled …” That 1867 version has no second half. It has no “That others may be loved more than I.” It closes instead by calling on Mary, “Mother of the humble,” St. Joseph, St. Michael and St. Francis.

So the two-part litany most people pray today took shape later, and the attribution to Merry del Val grew with its popularity. By 1948, C.S. Lewis could thank a friend in a letter for “the Litany composed by Cardinal Merry.” A cardinal who prayed it daily and handed it on is a reasonable guess for how the name attached. It is not a proof of authorship, and this page will not claim one.

A litany is a prayer of short petitions, each followed by the same response. This one takes about three minutes.

1. Begin with the Sign of the Cross and a moment of quiet. It helps to name, silently, one situation where you want to be seen well: a meeting, a family gathering, something you posted.
2. Say the opening: “O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.” It takes Christ at his word: “learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).
3. Pray the first movement. After each “From the desire…” and “From the fear…”, answer “Deliver me, O Jesus.”
4. Pray the second movement. After each “That others may…”, answer “Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.”
5. Stop where it stings. One line will catch. Stay with that one for a breath rather than hurrying past it. That line is the one the prayer is working on.
6. Close with a prayer. The Our Father works well, or the short prayer below, which ended the 1867 version.

In a group, one person reads each line and everyone answers with the response. Praying alone, say both parts yourself, aloud if you can. It is harder to skim a line you have to speak.

The eight desires. Esteemed, loved, extolled, honoured, praised, preferred, consulted, approved. They move from the inside out: wanting to be thought well of, then to be told so, then to be chosen over others, then to be asked for our opinion and have it confirmed. None of these is wicked in itself. The prayer asks to be freed from the desire, the hunger that makes our peace depend on getting them.

The eight fears. Humiliated, despised, rebuked, calumniated (falsely accused), forgotten, wronged, ridiculed, suspected. They are the same desires seen from the other side. We fear losing what we crave. Asking to be delivered from the fear is not asking never to be wronged. It is asking that being wronged no longer rules us.

The seven graces. That others may be loved and esteemed more than I; that others may increase and I may decrease; chosen while I am set aside; praised while I go unnoticed; preferred in everything; holier than I. The line about increasing and decreasing is John the Baptist’s, spoken of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). The last line has a careful condition: “provided that I may become as holy as I should.” The prayer never asks to be less holy. It asks to stop competing.

The Catechism puts humility at the root of prayer itself. Asking whether we pray “from the height of our pride and will” or from a humble and contrite heart, it answers: “humility is the foundation of prayer” (CCC 2559). It then quotes St. Augustine: “Man is a beggar before God.” Of the deepest kind of prayer, contemplation, it says that it “is a gift, a grace; it can be accepted only in humility and poverty” (CCC 2713).

The litany’s second half is the Catechism’s cure for envy, put into petitions. Envy, it says, “often comes from pride; the baptized person should train himself to live in humility.” It then quotes St. John Chrysostom: “rejoice in your brother’s progress and you will immediately give glory to God” (CCC 2540).

Scripture is full of the same teaching. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11). “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). St. Paul describes Christ, who “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and asks us to do “nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself” (Philippians 2:3, 7). The prophet’s summary of religion ends with it: “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

The litany is easy to misread as a prayer to think badly of yourself. It is not. Nowhere does it ask to be worthless, unloved or less holy. It asks to be free of needing esteem, and it wants others’ good as well as your own: “provided that I may become as holy as I should.”

Humility in the Christian sense is truth. You are loved by God without having earned it, and so is everyone else. Seeing that clearly takes away the need to win. If praying the litany leaves you feeling crushed rather than lighter, slow down, pray only the first half for a while, and talk it over with a priest or someone you trust. The prayer is meant to give rest, as its opening promises, not a new way to be hard on yourself.

• After Mass or Communion, as its traditional author is said to have done.
• Before something where you will be judged: an interview, a review, a performance, a hard conversation. The fears in the first half are exactly the ones those moments raise.
• When someone else is praised or chosen and it stings. The second half was made for that moment.
• At night, at the end of an examination of conscience, when the day’s pride is still fresh. Pride named in the litany is good matter for confession.
• Through Lent, as a daily prayer. It is a fast from self-importance, and it costs nothing to keep.

For a prayer that begins the day in the same spirit, the Morning Offering gives the whole day to God before anyone has praised or overlooked you.