22nd Sunday - Humility

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks about the pride of the Scribes and Pharisees. They are concerned about receiving honor at banquets and want to be noticed in public. They prefer their own glory, rather than to give glory to God.

Pride causes us to want to be noticed by others for who we are and for what we do. Pride can give us an unhealthy attitude of wanting others to serve us, rather than we serve them. Pride keeps us from admitting our mistakes for fear of others thinking negatively of us. Pride causes us to take credit for our achievements and be proud of our accomplishments, and want to receive a pat on the back. Pride demands that others serve us, rather than we serve them.

In the flint hills every year near Council Grove, there is an outdoor under the starts concert that is popular. One year, about 10 years ago, the local people were parking cars out in a pasture, when a limousine pulls up. The man parking cars said, “I’m sorry, ma'am, but you can’t park here.” The woman inside the car said, “Don’t you know who I am. I am the governor of the state of Kansas.” The man replied, “I don’t care who you are, you can’t park here. In about 10 minuets, there’s going to be about 200 head of cattle come through here.” The demanding attitude of wanting special treatment and others to serve us is a form of pride. All of us can be prideful at times, we are all human.

We need to remember all we have and all we do are graces and gifts from God. He is the one who gives us the desire to succeed, the intelligence to know things, the wisdom to choose rightly. We need to give Him the credit. The saints tell us, all that we can claim for our self is our sins. Humility is the virtue that conquers the vice of pride.

Humility helps us to admit our sins to God. In confession, we kneel before Him, asking Him to save us from our sins and to help us to get to heaven.

Humility helps us to not judge others. Rather, we say, “If that was me, I would be doing worse than they.”

With humility, we admit our mistakes, rather than always winning an argument or proving we are always right.

Humility causes us to submit to others. Even if we know a better way of doing something, we will do what our boss or our spouse wants us to do.

Humility also helps us to know we need to depend upon God for everything and see His hand in giving us all that we need. We should humbly ask God for help in our decisions and give us the temporal or spiritual things we need.

Humility helps us to hide the good things we do, rather than reveal them to others. We hide our fasting, alms giving, or our charitable deeds--- so that our motivation becomes pure, because we do it please God, rather than to be recognized by others.

If we are praised by others, we should praise God, rather than keep the compliment for our self. For example, if someone tells us we did something well, we should say something like, “Thanks be to God” or “Thank you Jesus!” We also shouldn’t say, “I did a terrible job”, when in fact we did well. Rather, we admit the truth--- and thank God for working through us.

If we are humble, when someone criticizes us, we won't get upset or if we are praised, we won't act as though we didn't do well. As Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are."

Humility is revealed by the way we respect others, especially the sick, the poor and the mentally ill. Are we condescending? Do we interrupt their speech, don’t pay attention to them, or look down upon them? All of these are forms of pride.

To have humility, we don’t brag about our abilities or our accomplishments. We don’t put others down to make our self look good. We aren’t rude and don’t insult others. To be humble is to compliment others and encourage them. To be humble, we come to know our own strengths and weaknesses. Humility is to help others and serve them, rather than want to be served. We start to focus more on others, rather than our self. To be humble we are not conceited and don’t want to draw attention to our self. We will not pretend to be someone were are not. Humility is asking others for help when we need it. When we think we are better than others, then we are losing humility and becoming prideful.

As an example of humility for children is captains of a team such as basketball chooses players who most of the time would chose the best players to be on your team. But out of humility, one captain chooses a player who doesn’t know how to play the game well, so he can help teach the person to learn as the game is played, even if it means losing to the other team.

Our humility is revealed by how we humble our self before those who are greater than us, especially Jesus, who is God. How do we approach God in prayer, or how do we genuflect to Our Lord in the tabernacle, or receive Him in Holy Communion.

Today, let us all desire to grow in humility, pray for it, practice it, and contemplate it. Meditate on the perfect act of humility of Our Lord’s Crucifixion and gaze upon the humility of God, as He humbles Himself to look like bread, but, is not bread, and is truly God, on the altar.

May we imitate the humility of Our Blessed Mother, who was exalted above all creatures, because She humbled Herself and knew, that “Whoever exalts himself, will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself, will be exalted.”