Every now and then, we hear people say: "I am proud of my accomplishments" or "that man became rich because he is a self-made man." Also, we hear in advertisements on television selling products with words like: "Proudly produced by XYZ Corporation." Is it wrong for us to be proud? If we are proud because what we are doing is ultimately to glorify God, then that is a different matter. But how many of us are proud in this way? How many of us would take credit and think that we did it our way and succeeded? When we become proud, we become so full of ourselves and think that we can do without God's help.
This is precisely what the reading warns us. The reading says: "You never know what will happen tomorrow: you are no more than a mist that is here for a little while and then disappears. The most you should ever say is: ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we shall still be alive to do this or that.’ But how proud and sure of yourselves you are now! Pride of this kind is always wicked. Everyone who knows what is the right thing to do and doesn’t do it commits a sin." Have we forgotten who we are and where we come from? Let us take heed and change our ways, walking humbly before God.
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