For the lay person, illness may be the most common way, as we lose control over parts of our bodies and the abilities we take for granted.
These bodily afflictions are out of our control and are both consequences of Original Sin and means of humiliation. Where I come from, a very Protestant area, people are still judged as sinners under the wrath of God for illness and failures. This is only partly true. To the extreme, this is heresy.
Another way God humbles the lay person is through financial set-backs and a lack of success in the world. Again, these events can be seen as opportunities for spiritual growth.
Another way is spiritual dryness, when God withholds comfort and lets a person live in the desert. This can go on for years and one must rely on Faith and Hope in a time when one does not feel Love.
Yet another manner in which God allows one to grow in humility are the hidden, interior pains of suffering which others may not see.
We need to be healed of rebellion.
Humility, if accepted graciously, can be healing.
In the same book by the Cistercian I quoted earlier on the other posting, the author writes this:
"...pride, by the process of compression , is eventually forced out of the heart; they are indeed terrestrial purgatories but at the same time propitious and hallowed spots where, by God's mercy, some temporal penalties, brief and light, can make sanctification for past delinquencies can effect the remission of daily faults, can become the remedy of our weakness, a treasure of virtues and of merits, a testimony of our attachment to God, the price of divine friendship and the instrument of our perfection."
And here is the kicker, "The heart that has intimate knowledge of self, regards the last place in the house of God more than it deserves."
To summarize, the heart that is full of self cannot experience the Love of God.
