The Litany of Humility is a short but devastating prayer composed by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val (1865-1930), who served as Secretary of State to Pope St. Pius X for the entirety of that pontificate. Merry del Val — Spanish-Irish by birth, English by formation at the English College in Rome — was a man of disciplined interior life and unusual self-effacement. The litany was found among his private devotional papers after his death and published by his secretary, becoming over the following century one of the most-prayed and most-shared modern Catholic prayers. The litany's structure is two-fold: an opening petition (the prayer cycle 'From the desire of being…' / 'From the fear of being…') and a closing petition that turns the heart toward Christ's good rather than one's own ('That others may be loved more than I…'). The invocations name the specific desires and fears that govern most spiritual struggle in adult Catholic life: the desire to be praised, esteemed, preferred, consulted, approved; the fear of being humiliated, despised, rebuked, forgotten, ridiculed, suspected. To each, the response is the same: 'Deliver me, Jesus.' The final movement asks not for the elimination of these desires (Catholic ascetical theology recognizes them as deeply embedded in fallen human nature) but for the grace of preferring Christ's reputation to one's own, and the reputation of others above one's own. The litany has had a quiet but enormous influence on modern Catholic spirituality — particularly among priests, seminarians, religious, and Catholics in vocational discernment — because its specificity cuts through abstraction. It is the prayer Catholics return to when they catch themselves performing virtue rather than practicing it, or when they realize that a given grievance is in fact wounded pride wearing the costume of justice. Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta reportedly prayed the litany daily; many Catholic seminaries assign it as part of formation.
7 min
Duration
1 day
Commitment
Beginner-Friendly
Level
Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val (author)
Patron Saint
Pray the litany slowly. The text is short — under three hundred words — but its weight comes from naming each desire and each fear distinctly. The traditional structure: (1) make the Sign of the Cross; (2) read aloud, slowly, the opening 'O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, hear me.'; (3) pray the long sequence of 'From the desire of being…' invocations, allowing yourself to feel which one names you on this particular day — do not rush past the one that lands; (4) pray the sequence of 'From the fear of being…' invocations, the same way; (5) pray the closing 'That others may be loved more than I…' petitions slowly, asking specifically for the grace each names. Many people pray this litany when they catch themselves in pride — after a difficult conversation, after writing an email they shouldn't have sent, after a meeting where they wanted to dominate, after a service-of-the-Church task that turned into a performance. The litany is appropriately prayed: at the beginning of a retreat, particularly an Ignatian eight-day retreat; before sacramental Confession (as part of the examination of conscience, the litany names patterns of pride that often hide in plain sight); during vocational discernment to priesthood, religious life, or marriage; on Good Friday or during the Sacred Triduum, when the Church meditates on Christ's self-emptying (kenosis); at moments of public humiliation or felt failure — when the litany shifts from being aspirational to being a description of where God has actually placed the petitioner. Cardinal Merry del Val's biographer notes that the cardinal prayed this litany every day after Mass for the entirety of his ministry as Secretary of State, in a Roman office where temptations to vanity and political maneuvering were continuous. The prayer fits within the broader Catholic ascetical tradition that names humility as the foundation of all other virtues — Augustine's 'first humility, second humility, third humility,' and Thomas Aquinas's identification of pride as the root of all sin.
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being honored, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being praised, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being approved, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being despised, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of suffering rebukes, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being calumniated, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being wronged, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being suspected, deliver me, Jesus. That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. Amen.
Coordinate sustained prayer for someone you love. Volunteers fill 30-minute slots covering days or weeks; the family receives a spiritual bouquet at the end.
Invite a small group to pray this with you. Everyone gets the same prayer text, the same rhythm, the same intention.