Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
St. Paul instructs us today about another green monster, or green-eyed monster, the sin of envy. In fact, in his treatment of envy in the Summa, St. Thomas Aquinas quotes this exact passage in affirming the sinfulness of envy. Envy, the Angelic Doctor writes, is “sorrow for another’s good,” which is a quote of how St. John Damascene defines envy. But St. Thomas further explains that when we envy someone, “we grieve over a man’s good, in so far as his good surpasses ours.” In other words, we see something good in another, and we get upset because we don’t have that good ourselves, or don’t have it in the same quantity. Now, to say that we’re upset because we don’t have something isn’t always bad. Fr. Nick Monco, a Dominican friar, has a whole video series on the vices through Open Light Media (this is my free plug for a great YouTube channel set up by the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist). And when it comes to envy, he uses the example of a friend who plays the piano well. He notes that if we notice our friend plays the piano well, and we get upset because we don’t and realize that we, perhaps, wasted opportunities in the past to work at playing the piano, or it spurs us on to take up piano lessons again so that I, too, can excel in the good of playing piano, that’s not envy. But if we were to get upset that our friend plays the piano well because it makes us look bad, that would be envy.
Envy gives away the joy that we should have in another’s excellence. When I notice something good in my neighbor, it should help me to love that person more. I am horrible at math. Can’t stand it. So when I see someone else who excels in math, that should cause me to rejoice in the gifts and talents that the other person has that I do not. Love of the other, charity, helps me to recognize that there are different members in the Mystical Body of Christ, each which has its own role and its own excellence, which, when applied together, cause an increase in the proper functioning of the entire body. Envy, on the other hand, seeks to take away the legitimate diversity of the other members, and causes disunity simply because I do not have a particular gift.
Envy breeds the harmful type of ambition, which I would say occurs when I strive to be the best, not for the good of excellence, but to gain power or prestige. We do not err when we seek to use our talents in the best way possible. But if I only do my best so that I get a promotion, or get further ahead in the company or in life than that other person, then I have left the realm of magnanimity, greatness of soul and settled for weakness that fears any other competition to my own good.
Envy can often come because we lack healthy self-esteem, or lack a certain confidence in another’s love for us. Think of two children playing at home. One child does something well, and gets celebrated for that new achievement. The other child, not wanting to lack the seeming extra love of the parents, tries to take away from the first child by doing something else that will cause the parents to stop praising the achievement of the first child, and turn the focus back on the other child. When I know that I am loved, even if I don’t have the gifts that others have, I don’t see love as a limited resource that has to be hoarded, or else I may run out of it. When I know that I am loved, I find it easier to rejoice in the good of the other because I know that love shared is love increased, and the gift of love for one does not decrease love that I can receive.
Envy especially becomes dangerous when it comes to spiritual matters. Spiritual envy occurs when I see another person with a spiritual good that I don’t have, or that another person is growing in grace while I am not. Again, I can see a spiritual good that I don’t have, and it causes me to work harder to be open to that good, and that is not envy. But when I don’t want another to grow in grace because I am not, that is certainly spiritual envy, and St. Thomas warns us, “it is accounted a sin against the Holy Ghost, because thereby a man envies, as it were, the Holy Ghost Himself, Who is glorified in His works.” True charity rejoices when another receives a special gift from God, rather than sorrows because I do not have it.
How do we fight envy? Rejoice in what others have. We can use the desire of what others have to push us on to achieve goals, and that is good. But rejoice in that good, no matter what it might be. Praise God for showering His gifts upon another when we recognize the gifts of another. When we feel that tinge of envy, remind ourselves that the love of God for us cannot be decreased simply because another’s good is increased. Have confidence in your own goodness, not in a prideful way, but in the way that God asks us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and so we have to have a certain type of healthy self-love or appreciation that we are a child of God. Take an inventory of the ways that God has blessed you, because it’s different than the way He has blessed others.
Don’t make room for the green-eyed monster. Fight to conquer it just as so many have fought to conquer the Green Monster at Fenway Park in Boston. Do not be sad at another’s good, but rejoice that God has blessed others with particular graces, just as He has blessed us: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.