It appeared as the prayer of the day on the very first day of the Lenten season, and it honestly caught me by surprise. The words are disarmingly direct. Line after line asks to be freed from the desire to be praised, admired, preferred, consulted, or even noticed. Then it goes even further and asks for the grace to genuinely accept the opposite: that others might be praised while you go unnoticed, that others might be preferred, that you might decrease while someone else increases.

The first time I read it, I just sat there for a minute.

Since then I’ve been going back to it once a week, slowly, usually alongside the Serenity Prayer. Not as some dramatic spiritual exercise, just as a quiet check-in. A kind of recalibration.

What makes it feel especially meaningful right now is the environment we’re all living in. The modern information stream is basically a nonstop contest for attention, outrage, loyalty, and tribal identity. Every day there’s another narrative trying to recruit you, another argument demanding you prove you’re on the right side, another chorus telling you who to blame or despise.

The Litany of Humility quietly cuts through all of that.

It reminds me that the real struggle isn’t out there nearly as much as it’s inside the human ego. The desire to be admired. The desire to win arguments. The desire to be seen, validated, or proven right.

Pairing it with the Serenity Prayer has been surprisingly stabilizing. One prayer helps let go of the illusion that I can control the chaos of the world. The other gently challenges the ego’s constant demand to be important inside that chaos.

Taken together, they feel less like religious performance and more like maintenance for the soul. A weekly reset.

Not because I’m especially humble. Honestly, probably the opposite. But because they remind me what direction I’m supposed to be walking.

In a culture that constantly inflames pride, anger, and tribal loyalty, the aspiration becomes something much simpler: a little less ego, a little more patience, a little more charity.

Just trying to keep pointed toward becoming the kind of person I hope to be.