Like Christ and St. Paul, Humbly Regarding Others As More Important Than Ourselves, 31st Monday (II), October 31, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Monday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
October 31, 2022
Phil 2:1-4, Ps 131, Lk 14:12-14

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today on this All Hallow’s Eve, Jesus and St. Paul speak to us about the path to holiness. As we prepare not just to celebrate the Feast of All Saints but to make resolutions so that one day we may be in that number when the saints come marching in, let’s pay special attention to what the Holy Spirit gives us today in the epistle and Gospel.
• On Friday, we began hearing St. Paul’s beautiful letter to the Philippians, which we will have throughout the week except for All Saints and All Souls Days. Philippi was the first place in Europe to hear the Gospel. It was the place where, after St. Paul had had a dream of a Macedonian asking him to come over, he left Troas and went on a boat to Neapolis, eventually coming to Philippi, a Roman colony with lots of disunity. It was there he met Lydia and stayed in her house. It was there he cured the possessed girl whom others were using to divine by the power of the devil. It was there he was thrown in jail and liberated by the earthquake. St. Paul had a special relationship with Philippi. It was the only place from which he accepted charity for himself, probably to give its people a chance to repair for the sufferings he endured there. He had a great desire for its unity and sanctity, and this letter was meant to help everyone come to unity. The real climax and center of the letter we would normally hear tomorrow, on Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, but because of All Saints Day, we will have the readings of the Solemnity instead. For that reason, I’d like to incorporate it today, because it flows immediately from this morning’s first reading. St. Paul says “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.” He calls us to put on Christ’s mind, to adapt ourselves to the Lord, to respond to his grace to think as Christ thinks, to will as Christ wills, to act as Christ acts. That’s his fundamental prayer for the Christians in Philippi and for the Christians in New York. That’s the path to holiness. That’s the proper context to understand what he says in today’s first reading: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.” Their unity will come about by their all attuning their minds and hearts to Christ’s. Once that happens then the rest of his prayer will come about: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory,” because Christ did everything out of selflessness and for the Father’s glory. “Rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests but also everyone for those of others.” Christ regarded us as more important than himself, he gave his life to save our lives. Even though he was God, he became our servant so that we might enter into divine life. When we adopt Christ’s attitude, then we, too, will not act out of self-centeredness or for earthly fame but will seek God’s glory, kingdom and will. We will seek to follow Christ’s example of greatness by becoming the servant of all, by washing the feet of others, by giving our lives for their salvation. We will seek, like he did, to empty ourselves and become a servant, obeying God all the way to death.
• We see the attitude, the mindset, of Christ in today’s Gospel when he gives invitation advice to those who had been invited to a dinner with him, a dinner in which he cured a man with dropsy to their scandal (as we would have heard on Friday if we didn’t have the proper readings for the Feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude), a dinner in which he spoke about taking the lowest seats. He teaches us not to have dinner parties out of self-interest or for our own vanity or ambition — something that was probably taking place then as the creme de la creme were invited for the dinner with Jesus, the famous rabbi — but out of charity, to serve others with love. “When you hold a lunch or a dinner,” Jesus said, “do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Jesus’ advice is revolutionary, because most of us naturally invite to dinner those family and friends or people with whom we can do business or guests of honor who can make us feel important. Jesus is telling us to invite the seeming nobodies, the handicapped, the overlooked and marginalized, those who often go without food not to mention don’t get invitations. This is precisely what he does in the Eucharist, inviting not just everybody including those who are challenged in any way, but us, who are often so poor in our relationship with him, crippled in our ability to do his work, lame in our ability to follow him when it gets strenuous, blind in our ability to see him in others or in various circumstances. He invites not just the Blessed Virgin and the guileless St. Bartholomew to dinner, but those who have betrayed him and will betray him, those who cannot possibly ever repay him. And he tells us to do the same.
• The point I would like to stress today, however, on this vigil of All Saints, is what Jesus says at the end of passage. He tells those who act on his words and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, “Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” He doesn’t just say at the “resurrection,” because we know that at the end of time, there will be the “resurrection of life” and the “resurrection of condemnation” (Jn 5:29), there will be the separation of the “sheep” and the “goats,” respectively, to the kingdom of the Father or to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:31-46). Jesus says specifically that those who do this will be repaid at the resurrection of the “righteous.” The only way we’ll be repaid there is if we are indeed righteous. Jesus is indicating to us a clear path to heaven by acting on what he’s teaching today: the actual act of inviting and caring for those who cannot pay for us, as well as the spiritual point of not doing things in any circumstance in order to be repaid. The path to being celebrated on All Saints Day in future centuries may be as simple as this, by loving and caring for those who can’t reward us here, because in so doing, we will be having the same attitude as found in Christ Jesus and pouring ourselves out kenotically like Christ. We will be humbly regarding others as more important than ourselves, looking out not for our own interests but also for those of others.
• Today as we come to the altar with all our handicaps, Jesus seeks to nourish us with himself so that having his mind and heart we may make room at this table for all those who are not here who need Jesus just as much as we do, and to make room at our our tables and in our lives, for those Jesus loves so much that he gave his life to save.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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