Modesty

One

The Look of Superficiality

The ninth commandment warns us against looking at women lustfully, as does Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. The look of lust is a sin of reductionism, a sin of looking at people as less than they really are. But another way to say it is that the look of lust is a sin of superficiality. It looks at the surface of the body and cares nothing for the depths of the soul.

All human beings are prone to temptations of superficiality. Temptations to put stock in what’s both immediate, obvious, and utterly unimportant.

And the virtue that saves us from losing our souls to superficiality is a virtue that’s badly misunderstood, and tragically underappreciated. That virtue is the virtue of Modesty.

Two

The Virtue of Modesty

For a lot of us, the word “modesty” is associated just with whether to wear sexually provocative clothing. But actually, modesty is about much, much more than that.

Listen to what the Catechism says, “Modesty protects the intimate center of the person… Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships… Modesty is decency… There is a modesty of feelings as well as of the body…” 

And then, listen to this, “Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.” (CCC #2521-2523).

That’s a lot more than just figuring out what to wear! Modesty makes it possible to have a rich inner life and to appreciate that life in others. It makes intimacy possible. It gives you an inner strength that makes you impervious to peer pressure and the force of current fashion.

So, what do you have to do to acquire modesty? Well, there are two main things you have to do: you have to resist spending time doing superficial, unimportant things. And you have to resist spending time thinking about superficial unimportant things.

Three

Resist Doing Irrelevant Things 

Modesty is the last virtue St. Thomas discusses in his long, long treatise on the Virtues. He lists the two main acts of Modesty as humility and studiousness.

Humility helps us focus on the good we should do and keeps us from things we have no business doing.

St. Gregory the Great says that prideful people are always dedicating too much of their energy to things they’re not good at and things nobody is asking them to do.

Humility demands that you focus on the work that your spiritual life and your state in life require of you. And your spiritual life and your state in life usually require that you do lots of little repetitive acts of service and self-sacrifice, all of which are unsensational.

This is the paradox of human life. The work that really matters, the work that your soul and other people need you to do, usually won’t bring you a lot of attention. So if you stick to that, if you stay humbly focused, it will make you modest. It will prevent you from dissipating your life in a lot of flashy and unimportant side stuff.

In other words, humility, focusing on the non-sensational day-to-day duties, will save you from superficiality.

Four

Resisting Thinking about Irrelevant Things

The other major part of the virtue of modesty is called studiousness. This isn’t just a virtue for students but for everyone.

Studiosness is focusing on the truth, the information we should know. It’s the virtue of disciplining your mind so that it doesn’t get distracted by irrelevant information.

There are things we actually do need to think deeply about in order to do our jobs well, in order to live our marriages well, in order to raise our kids well, and most importantly, in order to better practice our faith and deepen our prayer.

Almost everything else is relatively unimportant by comparison. And yet it’s that unimportant information that we consume in bulk every day. Information that doesn’t directly pertain to us, and that changes every day anyway. Information about things that lie on the surface of civilization, on the surface of history, whose deeper meaning, if there even is one, is known to God alone.

So if you want to avoid superficiality, a superficial mindset, don’t fill your head with superficial information that doesn’t have a direct bearing on your life and what you need to be doing.

Pray for the gift of studiosity, which is an integral part of modesty.

Five

Overcoming Superficiality

The vice of lust is just one of the most vivid symptoms of a superficiality that corrupts a mind that has not been disciplined by the virtue of modesty. Modesty says, I will not get distracted by what is less important. I will not indulge in superficiality. I will focus on the work I need to do. I will focus on the truth I need to understand. The rest doesn’t matter to me.

If we can do this, it won’t just help us fight lust. It’ll help us fight peer pressure, political ideology, depression, resentment, financial anxiety, and arrogance. Modesty is the great virtue of maintaining your focus.

Please God, give us the grace to avoid distraction and superficiality, and so come to peace.