Sunday, August 28th, 2022 – Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time C Readings: Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29, Psalm 68 “God, in your goodness, you have made a home for the poor”, Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a, Luke 14:1, 7-14

    ​ “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The message of this week’s Gospel is clear. Jesus wants humility. He gives some examples of humility that leave no doubt of its importance. So, it is worth thinking about the sense of humility. True humility depends on our attitude and the recognition that God is the giver of all the good that we are. We have to do the best we can, not to win over others, but to develop our gifts. Our goal should not be to beat others, but to use the good we have to improve the world.
​    Humility is a Christian virtue. It is foundational to all the other virtues. It symbolizes lowliness and submission, but not passivity. It takes its root from the Latin word Humus, that is earth, which is beneath us. Applied to persons, it is first, to be reminded or to be conscious of our own human smallness in the face of God. And second, being conscious of your own worth and yet submitting yourself to others. Not because we are weak or timid, but because that is what God asks of us, and that is how Christ would act. There we are invited to “have among ourselves the same attitude that is also ours in Christ Jesus, who, though, was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every know should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11).
     Humility is the opposite of pride and Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goes before a disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall”. Pride is the inordinate desire for one's own excellence. Humility is its opposite, because a humble person seeks his or her own excellence in a proper manner and degree.
    My dear friends, humility produces countless fruits, and it is linked to all the other virtues (prudence, chastity, meekness, patience, brotherly and sisterly love, kindness). Let us find countless opportunities each day to live a life of humility. May the Lord bless us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Fr. Paschal Chester, SVD