Ordinary Time 22
August 30, 2025
Humility and Love
Have you
ever heard the phrase, “Do as I say, not as I do”? Maybe we’ve said that
ourselves. And we might be tempted to think that Jesus was thinking in that
vein when He tells us to choose the lowest place. Easy for You to say, Jesus –
You’re the King of the Universe, and You tell us to humble ourselves?
But, as
in all things, Jesus speaks with integrity. He instructs us to humble ourselves
because He humbled Himself first – and infinitely moreso! We speak of Jesus’ kenosis
– a Greek word meaning “self-emptying”. He laid aside His glory to be born in a
dirty cave, in a feeding trough for animals. Even though He gave the
Jewish Law to Moses, He still submitted to it and followed it perfectly.
Although John’s baptism was for sinners, the Perfect One consented to be
baptized. He even took on the appearance of a slave when He washed the feet of
His Disciples. But His kenosis, His self-emptying, was not complete until He
died the death of a criminal.
If we
see the doctor drinking the bitter medicine, we are unafraid to drink it
ourselves. If we see Christ humbling Himself first, then we gain courage to do
the same. Humility makes us able to accept a humble God. After all, as St.
Padre Pio said, “Humility and purity are the wings that carry us to God and
make us almost divine.”
But the
second half of the Gospel is also something that Jesus has already done,
when He instructs us to hold banquets where we invite those who are blind,
lame, and cannot repay. Because He has set a banquet feast for us – Heaven,
which in Scripture is called the Banquet Feast of the Lamb, which is open to us
who are blind, lame, and cannot repay. CS Lewis in his famous book “Mere
Christianity”, says the following: “Everything you have, your power of
thinking or of moving, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your
whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was
not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything
for God or giving anything to God, it is like a small child going to his father
and saying, ‘Daddy, give me five dollars to buy you a birthday present.’ Of
course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all
very nice and proper, but only a fool would think that the father is five
dollars richer on the transaction. When a man has made this discovery God can
really get to work. It is after this that real life begins.”
We
literally can’t give God anything that isn’t His already. Our very lives are
gifts from Him to begin with. So we are those lame beggars who can’t repay –
and that’s the beginning of our humility. We needn’t despair of our inability to
repay, though – as St. Bernard says, “Where everything is given, nothing is
lacking.” All God asks of us is to give back to Him everything He’s already
given us – and in exchange, He gives us His very self!
Humility,
then, is necessary to welcome the Humble One. See how humbly He comes in the
Second Reading. We see this stark contrast between two mountains: Mount Sinai,
where Moses received the 10 Commandments and where God officially adopted the
Jews as His Chosen People. This was a terrifying encounter with God: thunder,
darkness, storm, blazing fire, earthquake. It was so terrifying that the people
of Israel asked God never to speak directly to them again. And in the Old
Testament, it was necessary to instill fear in the people, so that they would
be afraid to offend Him and break the Covenant. But this is contrasted with
another mountain: Mount Zion, which literally is the mountain on which Jerusalem
was built, but is a symbol of Heaven. And encountering God here is a much more
consoling image: surrounded by angels and the saints, drawing close to Jesus
our Friend, as one already redeemed by His Blood. He does not wish to instill
fear, but love.
What a
contrast to how the world views power! Machiavelli once wrote, “It is better to
be feared than loved” – and how many dictators and tyrants throughout history
lived that out! But by contrast, St. John Bosco said, “Get them to love you and
they’ll follow you anywhere” – and this is the method preferred by God. He
could certainly force us to obey Him, but He would prefer to entice us to love
Him instead, by becoming small and humble and vulnerable.
Consider
how many times Jesus in the Eucharist is received unworthily by those who don’t
care, who are in mortal sin, or who purposely want to mock Him – yet He remains
here and suffers such abuse because He wants to draw us to Himself through love.
We have a particularly devout young soul named Andre at the school where I
teach, who has such a burning love for the Eucharist that he gets up early to serve
our optional before-school Mass – at only eleven years old. One day I was
celebrating a funeral here at St. Jude’s, and was so disheartened by the way
everyone was receiving Communion – coming up as if they were receiving a snack,
greeting other people in line, talking all the way up to Communion. My heart
was breaking and I prayed as I distributed, “Lord, why do you stay with us in
the Eucharist? You are treated so poorly.” I felt the Lord say clearly to my
soul, “I stay because I love to be received by souls like Andre.” Would He say
the same about you?
The Lord
became humble in the Eucharist so that He could lift up the humble. A Father
can only lift up a small child – he doesn’t usually lift up a grown adult! So,
to be united to the Divinely Humble One, we too must become little – not worrying
about our own ego or what others think of us, not trying to get attention, allowing
others to shine as long as we do our best, not thinking ourselves better than
others. Chesterton once said, “Angels can fly because they take themselves
lightly” – we too can soar up to the highest Heaven if we are not weighed down by
our ego.
Pride
says, “I want to be loved, so I’m going to get it myself – by being praised, by
winning every contest, by being the top dog, by being the center of attention.”
Humility says, “I want love, so I’m going to turn to God and allow Him to
quench my insatiable thirst for love.” One grasps desperately, one receives
gratefully.
St.
Augustine said, “It was pride that made angels into devils, and it is humility
that makes men like the angels.” Humility – we are who we are before God, and
nothing more – just beggars, really, receiving all things from Him – this Humility
is the only way to draw near to a God Who humbled Himself first.
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