Homily for Saturday 3rd November 2018
_“For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” *Luke 14:11*_
Pride is one of the seven capital vices or better put, the seven deadly sins. Pride is a serious sin. The Bible teaches that pride was the sin of the angel of light, Lucifer, also known as satan which made him attempt to challenge God and for that, he was thrown down to hell. The danger of pride is its unsusceptible nature. I could be guilty of pride without even knowing it thinking I am doing the right thing.
The easiest way to detect pride is when we begin to believe or assume that no one is as good, holy, wealthy, knowledgeable or important as we are. When we start to think we are the best, it means we become blind to the existence of people better than we are.
Jesus was invited to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees. By the way, Jesus always took meal times as great opportunities to teach. In fact, Jesus seemed to have taught more outside the synagogue (church) than he did inside. On this occasion, Jesus noticed how the invited guests chose the places of honour and he picked on this to teach us a very important lesson about pride.
Like these guests who went straight to occupy places of honour, pride closes your eye to the fact that there could be people more qualified for those seats than you. As Jesus puts it, “lest a more eminent man than you be invited and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.” Luke 14:8-9.
Can you imagine the amount of disgrace? If they could see, they would have noticed they were not the most important persons deserving of such seats; they would have known such seats did not belong to them even though they might have sat there before. This is exactly what happens to us when we become proud. We become blind to the goodness and value of others. We forget that nothing belongs to us; that the owner of the house (God) has a right to put us in whatever position he so pleases.
Unfortunately, we only become conscious of our pride after we have suffered a fall; after we are asked to return to a lower position in shame. A true test of our humility is how we react to humiliation by others. It is one thing to pretend to be humble so as to be noticed (which is actually pride inverted on itself) but it is a different thing altogether when we are insulted unexpectedly. Do I flare up? Do I throw back an insult? Do I try to prove I am something? Or do I calmly accept my imperfection, laugh over it and forgive the other person immediately?
Humility is actually a very rare virtue. As we can see, not many people are able to handle humiliation calmly and this explains why even though no one likes to admit he or she is proud, pride lives in our bones. St. Paul in today’s first reading says: “to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” This is what should be our goal as Christians; to reach a point in our spiritual lives when we can say with St. Paul that “to live is Christ.” Do I allow Christ to live in me that I become His living incarnation?
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, you are humble and meek in heart. Make me just like you. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. (Saturday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time. Bible Study: Philippians 1:18-26, Psalm 42:2-5 and Luke 14:1-11).
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