Whoever is the main character in your own story (life) is your “god” or “object of worship.” Now, consider it normal for fallen humans, due to an addiction to pride, to place themselves in the center of their own story. This is normal, yet nonetheless disordered – and its called ‘self-idolatry.’
This type of self-idolatry can manifest itself in obvious ways and sometimes more latent ways. For instance, one who perpetually serves others and the Lord may have the exterior show of being concerned for the Glory of God and the good of others. Yet it could all amount to a self-serving feature, a type of virtue signal. St. John of the Cross speaks about this, whereby we turn to the Lord only for His consolations and would prefer to suffer nothing for His sake. This he deems as being rendered ‘an enemy of the cross of Christ.’ Daunting words. Likewise a person who explicitly declares that others must serve themselves demonstrate perhaps a deeper problem that the apparent, previous hypocrisy doesn’t suffer. Although such a person has avoided the hypocrisy of a false-appearance, they have nonetheless surrendered their mind to the error of self-idolatry as though it were something good. Meanwhile, the hypocrite may only appear as that, but in reality simply be struggling with what they know to be right.
The Little Flower said it best in encouraging us to see Christ as the Rose, and ourselves as the little white flowers. Mary, the mother of God who saw herself as to magnify the Lord, and all the saints who followed thus demonstrate the same point: we don’t begin living life until we escape the narrow prison cell of a narrative where “I” am the main actor. And when we come to be aware of this, there is only one Being who belongs there – the greatest, most supreme One who asks us to follow Him: our Triune God. So our story is not about ‘my truth’ but about magnifying the Logos who is ‘the Truth.’ And it is here that we escape the narrow narcissisms of self-idolatry.
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