In today’s readings, both from the First Reading and the Gospel, the virtue of
humility takes a very prominent place. It is the unifying theme of the readings this
Sunday. The esteem or the importance in which our Christian faith puts on humility is not just something that is an add-on to our faith but, rather, is intrinsically and
indispensably part of who we are as followers of Christ.
Humility comes from the Latin word “humilitas”, which means “grounded” or “from the earth”, connected with the word “humus”, which means soil or earth. A person who is humble is first and foremost grounded on the truth of who he/she is according to the plan of God. Humility always presupposes the truth. Arrogance or pride, as opposites of humility, is to push for one’s own version of the truth, usurping what doesn’t belong to him or her. Sin is always an end result of lack of humility, a failure to live in the truth of God’s plan for us.
If truth is the basis of humility, then to be humble is not about regarding oneself as low, despicable, beneath respect or allowing oneself to be trampled upon. But, rather, it involves a realistic understanding of who we are and our potentials with the assistance of the grace of God, and so set out to scale the heights. It is also the liberation from rivalry, from that negative compulsion to measure oneself against other people: “Why did this person get promoted and not me?”; “Why was this person experiencing a better life than
myself?”; “Why was he asked to do this important job and not me?”
Humility is the realization that I have to be thankful as to what I have while rejoicing on the success of others, seeing others not as threats or competitors, but as avenues for mutual sharing and growth. Last week as I was driving in town, I saw an eye-catching sign at one of our local churches that speaks so well about humility: “When you throw mud at people, you lose ground.”
In our secular world, competition seems to be the rule of the game. It has its gains and advantages. For example, good competition among products is great for consumers. But, in personal relationships, competition without mutual recognition and mutual need is destructive and divisive. St. Catherine of Siena wrote what God told her in a vision: “I could well have made human beings in such a way that they had everything, but I preferred to give different gifts to different people, so that they would all need each other.” In emphasizing the importance and vitality of this virtue of humility, we can find our model of humility par excellence in the very person of Jesus. His becoming as man (in assuming our humanity and everything that goes with it except sin, and eventually dying on the cross without the necessity of doing so), he showed us what humility is at its best. That’s why every liturgy, every Mass, also manifest this humbling work of God. We find ourselves here as one and united in faith seated in the same pews regardless of who we are,
regardless of our background, education, economic status and spiritual state. There is no special pew here for those who give more money to the collection plate, and there is no special pew reserved for those who are struggling to belong to the Church. God gave himself totally to all of us. He did not give only part of himself to the sinners and the whole of himself to the righteous. If this is our image of who God is, then our natural response is to see others around us as truly worthy of our respect, our understanding and generosity. Am I humble because I live in the truth of the Gospel? Or, do I lose ground because I fail to live in the truth of my faith? – Fr. Cary