SATURDAY HOMILY: 30TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)
THEME: The Memorial of St Charles Borromeo
By: Fr Uroko Erick.
Reading 1 – Romans 11:1-2, 11-12, 25-29
Gospel – Luke 14:1, 7-14
Ps. /Resp. – 94 (The Lord will not abandon his people)
Awareness that God is the one who gives gifts and that he gives so that his gifts can be handy: How to be Humble without Stress
Jesus is a great teacher who made use of every event or situation to teach. As a guest in the house of one of the Pharisees, he observed carefully how people chose the places of honour. After this careful observation, he gave a sound teaching on humility with particular emphasis on the appropriate actions when invited to an occasion. His advice is: When invited to a function, the guests should first go to the lowest of places instead of the places of honour. It is better to be called up to higher places from the lower places than to be sent down to the lower places from the higher places. This practical lesson for the Pharisees was motivated by his observation at a dinner party that involved Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees were not the best audience to Jesus because they always had some impure intentions. They always wanted to set trap and see him fall into them so as to bring him down. Jesus was aware of their plots and attitude toward him; yet he taught them an important lesson.
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For us, the teaching Jesus gave the Pharisees in our gospel passage today is a great lesson on humility. The Pharisees rejected Jesus Christ because of their pride. What Jesus preached demanded a great deal of descending and they were not ready to descend. They wanted to rise in prestige, honour and splendour. We are in a world where it is becoming the norm to assert oneself beyond the margins of humility. Mature men desire more loyalty, respect and humility from women and children. Children are asserting themselves in some appalling ways. Feminism has become a great reinforcement for women who desire to be exalted. In general, it is becoming a civilization that is short of humility. The movement is generally to the top; no one wants to descend. The message of Christ is an alarm that is calling for a reverse to this secular trend: A civilization of pride and arrogance.
The best way to go to imbibe the virtue of humility is to be conscious always that everything we have comes from God and if the things we have come from God, they are not certainly meant for us alone. They have been given us in order to be handy to the people in need of them. If God wants, he would have, with his hands, given so many gifts directly to human beings because he is Omnipotent. He prefers to choose human beings because he wants them to be like God. Pride results when we refuse to give those in need attention; humility automatically results from active willingness to give to those in need. Those who have been given affluence; those who are skilled; those who are employed, and indeed, basically all those who have life and health, etc.: All these can be humble if and only if they understand God has given them gifts and whatever God gives has so many beneficiaries. Humility is impossible without the understanding that: 1. God is the one who gives to us and 2.Whatever can be termed gifts from God has larger beneficiaries than ourselves and our family and friends. Therefore, if we fail to be aware that whatever we have comes from God and those gifts have been given not to be banked by us for ourselves alone, but for others, we lose the chances of being humble..
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