Oh Lord it's hard to be humble ...

HUMILITY AND PRIDE

Lk. 14:1, 7-14

If pride is the deadliest of the seven sins and leads us on the road to hell: then humility its opposite virtue, must be the virtue that will lead us to heaven.  Humility occurs as a recurrent theme in the Gospel according to St. Luke.  In his very first chapter, he sets the tone of the whole Gospel by presenting to us the Magnificat, that beautiful canticle which recalls Mary’s humility.  The Magnificat acts as an overture containing the themes of the Gospel, a summary of its contents.  As the Gospel unfolds, St. Luke unpacks and develops the themes contained in the Magnificat through stories and parables taken from the life of Jesus. The importance of humility is emphasised by the story of the repentant thief on the cross, by the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, and the parable of the wedding guests in today’s Gospel.

The word humility is derived from the Latin “humus”, meaning earth or ground.  The humble person, therefore, is one who is firmly grounded in reality, whereas the proud person lives in a fool’s paradise created by the illusions of his ego.  Pride creates a false, exaggerated image of oneself and that is why such a person is described as big-headed.  We can perhaps appreciate the characteristics of humility if we compare the qualities of a humble person with those of a proud one.

Humility begins with a recognition of the goodness of oneself as a gift of God.  When this goodness is recognised, acknowledged and attributed to God in a spirit of gratitude, then we have the foundations of humility.  This is what Mary did in the Magnificat.  She clearly admitted the fact that she was truly blessed.  "Behold this day forward, all generations will call me blessed.”  But then she goes on to attribute the cause of this blessedness, not to herself, but entirely to God.  “The Almighty has done great things for me; holy is His name.”  The proud person recognises the goodness in himself but fails to attribute it to God.  This act of attributing goodness to oneself is symbolically described in today’s Gospel by the wedding guests choosing the places of honour for themselves.  We know too well that seating arrangements at a wedding banquet are the prerogative of the host.  It is for the host to decide who sits where.  Similarly, it is God who is the source of all goodness.  Therefore, the goodness which is in us must be acknowledged as coming from God and not from ourselves. 

The humble person is just as ready to recognise his sinfulness as his goodness; but whereas the goodness comes from God, the sinfulness comes from none other than himself.  St. Francis summed this up beautifully when he said, “We have nothing which we can call our own except our sins and vices.”  The only exception to this rule was, of course, Our Lady, who was totally sinless.  Every other person must be humble enough to acknowledge his or her sinfulness like the publican in the Temple, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.”  Such an attitude automatically leads to compassion and understanding for other people’s sinfulness.  The proud person, by contrast, cannot face up to his own sinfulness.  Unable to face the pain of his own brokenness, he flees from himself and takes the escape route of looking at other people’s sins.  His eyes then are able to observe the splinter in his brother’s eyes, but not the speck in his own.

Lord Jesus, may we learn from St. Francis that are only true possessions are our sins, and from your Mother the humility which sets us firmly on the road to heaven.

MY WEBSITE IS HERE