Humble Yourself the More, 22nd Sunday (C), August 28, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
August 28, 2022
Sir 3:17-18.20.28-29, Ps 68, Heb 12:18-19.22-24, Lk 14:1.7-14

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The text that guided today’s homily was: 

• In Jesus’s parable in today’s Gospel, the Lord is doing far more than giving his disciples — those 2000 years ago and us today — advice on how to achieve the best seats at a wedding reception. As valid and applicable as that counsel is for human situations, Jesus’ real point was to teach us how to be exalted at the eternal wedding banquet to which the Host, his Father, has invited “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.” In order for us to hear those words from God the Father, “Friend, move up higher,” which is the deepest longing that exists in the human heart, for definitive happiness and holiness in heaven, Jesus says that there is only one way: we must recognize that we’re poor in need of the Lord’s true riches, crippled in need of the Lord’s help to straight ourselves out, lame desperate for the Lord’s grace to walk by faith, and blind crying out for the light of faith to see things clearly. We must, in short, humble ourselves, for it is only the humble who will be so exalted.
• These are very hard and challenging words in our culture, which so much prizes human exaltation. We see it in the ever-growing number of award shows indulging the egos of those in film, television and music, as they give out awards for best actors, actresses, directors, producers, graphic artists, costume designers, film editors, hairstylists, production designers, sound mixers, screen play writers, you name it. We see it in the honors we give to the students who are “Most Popular” and “Most Likely to Succeed,” to the “Best Looking” women in beauty pageants, to the “Most Successful” sales representatives, to the “Most Valuable Player” in sports leagues, and even to the “best groomed” dogs. So many of us have been raised with the desire not only to be the best, but to be acknowledged as the best, and if we recognize begrudgingly that we’re not the best, we at least want to be betterthan those with whom we come into contact. We want to get our own way, rather than conceding to the wishes of another. We want to get the last word, rather than concede it to someone else. We want to be the ones noticed and thanked, and resent it if others get the credit we think we deserve. In short, we hunger to be noticed, esteemed, and exalted. We want the places of honor at table, first class seats on airplanes and front row seats at concerts. We long for positions of power and influence and titles of status and worldly honor.
• To all of us in this culture, Jesus says to us in the words of today’s Alleluia verse, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Jesus’ whole life is a lesson in humility and he turns to each of us and says, “Follow me!”
• St. Paul described Jesus’ humility best in his letter to the Philippians, grounding our humility on the unbelievable humility of the Son of God: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:3-11).
• Jesus, St. Paul emphasizes, humbled himself to assume our human nature, to take upon the form of a slave to serve us rather than to be served (Mt 20:28), to wash our feet, (Jn 13), to become obedient to human authority, and even to allow himself to be mistreated, manhandled and murdered by his own creatures, all so that he might save us.  He humbled himself and God the Father exalted him forever. St. Peter said that Jesus did all of this to leave us an example, so that we would follow in his footsteps (1Pet 2:21). If we do this, if we learn, imitate and enter into Christ’s humility, then we will enter into Christ’s exaltation.
• This is a perennial message God has been seeking to teach us from the beginning. Sirach instructs us in today’s first reading, “My child, conduct your affairs with humility.” Everything we do, in other words, we’re called to do humbly. Sirach continues, “The greater you are,” the more blessed you are with talents, material goods, prestige or high office, “humble yourself the more, and you will find favor in God.”
• But becoming humble is easier said than done. We first need to have a clear grasp of what humility is. Humility comes from the Latin word, humus, which means ground or dirt. It has various connected spiritual meanings. It means, first, that we have both of our feet on the ground, that we have a deep sense of who we are. As we hear every year on Ash Wednesday, we recognize we’re dust and unto dust we shall return. We acknowledge our human weaknesses and limitations. At the same time, however, humility means that even though we know we’re dust, we also recognize that God has breathed into us the breath of life, that he calls us through a humble life to greatness, to a communion of love with him and others. We’re vessels of clay, to use St. Paul’s image, carrying within an immense treasure (2 Cor 4:7). To be humble, we need to keep both of these things in mind. To be humble doesn’t mean that we think that we’re losers, to lack self-esteem or even harbor a little self-hatred. Consistent with the overall message of the Gospel, it means, rather, that we’re ex-captives who have been liberated by Jesus and have become adopted children of the King. Humility means never forgetting where we have come from, but also remembering the greatness that our relationship with God confers on us. To be humble does not concern primarily our attitude toward ourselves, but fundamentally our attitude toward God and others, to let God act, to acknowledge our dependence on him, to thank him for his blessings, to implore his mercy, and to make his ways our own.
• Saint Augustine, the great doctor of the Church whom the Church celebrates today, recognized that his conversion was ultimately not from a life of unchastity to chastity but from pride to humility. When he was 17 and was going to school in Carthage, he was open to the Christian faith of his mother St. Monica, but he couldn’t accept that God’s word could exist in the bad Latin translation extant before St. Jerome produced the Vulgate. In the pagan world, humility was a vice not a virtue, a choice for wretchedness rather than excellence, or minimally a begrudging acknowledgement of the misery of the human condition. His conversion was the fruit of many influences, including the tear-filled prayers of his mother over 15 years and the eloquence and spiritual fatherhood of St. Ambrose, but the trigger God used manifested this interplay between pride and humility that was at the core of his struggles. Even after he had become convinced of the truth of the Christian faith, morally he couldn’t yet submit to it. He lamented with his friends that the poor and the humble were seizing the kingdom of God but that he, with all his learning, was remaining outside. But God converted him through the voice of what seemed to be a little child singing over the wall, “Take and read,” which lead him to open up Sacred Scripture and have his eyes fall on St. Paul’s words, “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. … Let us then throw off the works of darkness [and] put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” And to put on the Lord Jesus Christ was to allow him as the Divine Physician to heal him of the consequences of pride through conquering it via humility on Calvary.
• St. Augustine made humility from that point forward the foundation of his life and the center of his moral teaching. He recognized that the true notion of humility was what the ancient pagan authors called “wisdom,” which was the first rung on the ladder of perfection. In a letter to a young man named Dioscurus, who was trying Augustine’s patience by his resistance, St. Augustine wrote about the crucial importance of humility: “My dear Dioscorus, I wish you to submit with complete devotion, and to construct no other way for yourself of grasping and holding the truth than the way constructed by Him who, as God, saw how faltering were our steps. This way is first humility, second humility, third humility, and however often you should ask me I would say the same, not because there are not other precepts to be explained, but, if humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, and if it is not set before us to look upon, and beside us to lean upon, and behind us to fence us in, pride will wrest from our hand any good deed we do while we are in the very act of taking pleasure in it. It is true that other defects have to be feared in our sins, but pride is to be feared in our very acts of virtue; otherwise, those praiseworthy acts will be lost through the desire of praise itself. And so, just as that famous orator who was asked what he considered the fundamental rule of public speaking is said to have answered ‘delivery,’ and when asked the next important, he again said ‘delivery,’ and, for the third, the same ‘delivery,’ so, if you should ask, and as often as you should ask, about the precepts of the Christian religion, my inclination would be to answer nothing but humility, unless necessity should force me to say something else.” He told us that if we wish to rise spiritually and grow, we must begin by descending. Without humility, there cannot be any other virtue, except in appearance, because it’s humility that helps us take on the mind and heart of Christ and relay on his love and providence. The “Beauty ever ancient, ever new” that he discovered late but not too late was the incredible humble love of God for him and for us that it came to save us.
• This understanding of and love for humility was very much appreciated and lived by St. Teresa of Calcutta, whose 112^th birthday we celebrated on Friday and whose 25^th anniversary of her birthday into eternal life we’ll mark in eight days. Mother wrote, “Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.” She learned humility, and taught her spiritual daughters humility, by focusing on him who is meek and humble of heart. “The humility of Jesus,” she said, “can be seen in the crib, in the exile to Egypt, in the hidden life, in the inability to make people understand Him, in the desertion of his apostles, in the hatred of his persecutors, in all the terrible suffering and death of his passion, and now in his permanent state of humility in the tabernacle, where he has reduced himself to [the appearance of] such a small particle of bread that the priest can hold Him with two fingers.” She urged you to “learn to be humble by doing all the humble work and doing it for Jesus. You cannot learn humility from books; you learn it by accepting humiliations. Humiliations are not meant to torture us; they are gifts from God. These little humiliations—if we accept them with joy—will help us to be holy, to have a meek and humble heart like Jesus. Those insights are encapsulated in her so-called humility list, about practices to grow in humility, which has become known to millions: “Speak as little as possible about yourself. Keep busy with your own affairs and not those of others.Avoid curiosity. Do not interfere in the affairs of others. Accept small irritations with good humor. Do not dwell on the faults of others. Accept censures even if unmerited. Give in to the will of others. Accept insults and injuries. Accept contempt, being forgotten and disregarded. Be courteous and delicate even when provoked by someone. Do not seek to be admired and loved. Do not protect yourself behind your own dignity. Give in, in discussions, even when you are right. Choose always the more difficult task.”
• Every time we come to Mass we have the chance to “humble ourselves the more.” We begin Mass with the penitential rite, humbly crying out for mercy in response to our having greatly sinned in thought, word, action and omission by our own most grievous fault, grow to put on the mind of Christ through the Liturgy of the Word, fall down in awe the God who comes from heaven to the altar, and then begin to become meek and humble of heart through entering into Holy Communion with him hidden under the most humble appearances, recognizing that we’re not worthy to be called to the Supper of the Lamb but he says the word and lifts us up. As the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, at Mass, if only our eyes could see it, we would realize that we are here approaching on earth “Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.” As we prepare for nuptial union with him, let us ask him for the grace to learn from him, to decrease so that he and others can increase, to humble ourselves more and more, so that together with him we can go out to serve others in such a way that through us and our Christian example, they might themselves journey with us on the way of humility and have God one day say to them as well, “Friend, come up higher!” O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts humble like yours!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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