To Go Up Higher

http://www.salvationhistory.com/homily_helps/english/september_1st_2013_-_22nd_sunday_in_ordinary_time

DR. SCOTT HAHN

We come to the wedding banquet of heaven by way of humility and charity. This is the fatherly instruction we hear in today’s First Reading, and the message of today’s Gospel.

Jesus is not talking simply about good table manners. He is revealing the way of the kingdom, in which the one who would be greatest would be the servant of all (see Luke 22:24-27).

This is the way He showed us, humbling Himself to come among us as a man (see Philippians 2:5-8), as one who serves, as the bearer of glad tidings to the poor (see Luke 4:18).

This is the way, too, that the Father has shown us down through the ages - filling the hungry, sending the rich away empty, lifting up the lowly, pulling down the proud (see Luke 1:52-53).

We again call to mind the Exodus in today’s Psalm - how in His goodness the Lord led the Israelites from imprisonment to prosperity, rained down bread from heaven, made them His inheritance, becoming a “Father of orphans.”

We now too have gained a share of His inheritance. We are to live humbly, knowing we are are not worthy to receive from His table (see Luke 6:7; 15:21). We are to give alms, remembering we were ransomed from sin by the price of His blood (see 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

The Lord promises that if we are humble we will be exalted and find favor with God; that if we are kind to those who can never repay us, we will atone for sins, and find blessing in the resurrection of the righteous.

We anticipate the fulfillment of those promises in every Eucharist, today’s Epistle tells us. In the Mass, we enter the festal gathering of the angels and the firstborn children of God, the liturgy of the heavenly Jerusalem in which Jesus is the high priest, the King who calls us to come up higher (see Proverbs 25:6-7).

Humility Opens Doors

http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/209/Humility_Opens_Doors____Marcellino_D_Ambrosio__Ph.D..html

Why the meek shall inherit the earth and those who are last shall be first.

“Nice guys finish last,” says the world.   “The last will be first,” replies Jesus.

My guess is that the Lord of creation knows best who really wins in the end.  And he says “whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Gospel of Luke 14:11).

To understand why the humble get ahead and why the meek shall inherit the earth, we need to be sure that we understand what humility and meekness really are. 

Humility does not mean looking down on oneself or thinking ill of oneself.  It really means not thinking of oneself very much at all.

The humble are free to forget themselves because they are secure.  They accept the fact that, as creatures, they are small, vulnerable, and not ultimately in control.  But they know there is a Creator who is great, omnipotent, and totally in control.  And they know that they’ve been made in the image and likeness of that Creator.  That makes gives them a dignity that they don’t have to earn and can never be taken away.  Though they’ve tarnished the divine likeness through sin, they know that the Creator came down from the heights of heaven to become human and fix what they couldn’t fix.

So when they mess up, the humble don’t have to cover up.  They just say “please forgive me,” give thanks for God’s mercy, and move on.  And when their creaturely limitations cause them to fail, they are not surprised.  They realize that they are not God.

All this is simply a way of saying that the humble are in touch with reality. 

If the definition of insanity is being out of touch with reality, then our proud world with its “nice guys finish last” illusion is clearly insane.

Since the humble are secure, they are strong.  And since they have nothing to prove, they don’t have to flaunt their strength or use it to dominate others.  Humility leads to meekness. And meekness is not weakness.  Rather, it is strength under control, power used to build up rather than tear down.

The humble are not threatened either by God’s greatness or the reflection of that greatness in the talents of others.  In fact, this is what naturally catches their eye and absorbs their attention – the goodness of God, wherever it may be found.

The form of prayer that extols God’s goodness is called praise.  The activity that honors God’s goodness in other people is called affirmation.  The humble take delight in praising God and affirming people.

The reason the humble take the last place of honor at the table is not because they think ill of themselves, but because they are preoccupied with honoring others.  And the reason people ask them to move higher is because they know this admirable attitude is rare.  In fact it is actually divine.  It is exactly the way the three Divine Persons relate to each other.  The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Spirit is so preoccupied with glorifying the Father and the Son that most of us feel we really don’t know much about Him.

“An attentive ear is a wise man’s joy” (Sirach 3:28).  The humble are able to truly listen to another with genuine interest and delight in the other’s goodness.  The humble are the people who give you their undivided attention and make you feel special and appreciated.  You love to have them around.  You love to work hard for them.  You cheer when they are honored.

The proud, on the other hand, are so self-absorbed that their conversations become monologues.  When you are speaking, they are not listening.  They are just thinking about what they are going to say next.  Eventually you smile, yawn, and do your best to get away from them.  You roll your eyes when they brag of their exploits.  If you work for them, you do the minimum required while looking for a better job.  So those who exalt themselves are ultimately left alone.  But those who humble themselves gather a crowd of admirers.

When asked to name the four Cardinal Virtues, St. Bernard of Clairvaux replied “humility, humility, humility, and humility.  He said this because the word “cardinal” means “hinge.”  And everything hinges on humility.  Humility opens the door to the hearts of others and to the heart of God.

God invites those who recognize their lowliness and their need of salvation.

http://www.scborromeo.org/biblestu/c_ot_22.pdf

In older Catholic Bibles, this book is listed as Ecclesiasticus, meaning “Church Book.”

 in the early Church it was a kind of official catechism used in the   catechumenate.


 The author of the book is Jesus, the son of Eleazar, of the house of Sirach.


 Jesus Ben Sirach wrote his book during the first decades of the 2nd century before   Christ


 During this period the   Jewish nation and the Jewish religion were threatened with extinction.


 Every Jew was called upon to choose between the old and the new, the spirit of   Moses and the Prophets, and the spirit of Hellenistic heathenism.


 Be conscious of your limitations and your true position before God as a creature and sinner.


 The high and mighty have a greater need to be humble than the lowly and weak.


 The assembly of the people of the New Covenant is not   on this earth, but in the heavenly sanctuary.


 Since they already possess the benefits of Jesus’   sacrifice, he can speak of them as having already arrived.


 Gospel - Luke 14:1, 7-14


 Jesus uses the occasion of a meal and the attendant social   etiquette to teach – not about good manners at table, but about the Kingdom.


 God invites those who   recognize their lowliness and their need of salvation.


 In Luke’s   communities people from all different walks of life and from different nations are friends   because they have all things in common.

We come to the wedding banquet of heaven

http://www.salvationhistory.com/homily_helps/english/september_1st_2013_-_22nd_sunday_in_ordinary_time

We come to the wedding banquet of heaven by way of humility and charity.

 He is revealing the way of the kingdom, in which the one who would be greatest would be the servant of all


 He showed us, humbling Himself to come among us as a man (see Philippians 2:5-8), as one who serves, as the bearer of glad tidings to the poor


 the Father has shown us down through the ages - filling the hungry, sending the rich away empty, lifting up the lowly, pulling down the proud


 We are to live humbly, knowing we are are not worthy to receive from His table


 We are to give alms, remembering we were ransomed from sin by the price of His blood


 if we are kind to those who can never repay us, we will atone for sins, and find blessing in the resurrection of the righteous.


 In the Mass, we enter the festal gathering of the angels and the firstborn children of God, the liturgy of the heavenly Jerusalem in which Jesus is the high priest, the King who calls us to come up higher

faith, hope, and charity – come from God, are infused in the human soul

http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-beatitude-of-poverty-gift-of-fear.html

Not only humility, but also a certain poverty is praised – to take the lower place at table, and to invite the poor rather than the rich when holding a banquet.

 Catechism of the Catholic Church defines a virtue as “an habitual and firm disposition to do the good.


 among the virtues we may distinguish those which perfect the intellect (the intellectual virtues) and those which perfect the will (the moral virtues).


 virtues which are built up by human efforts (the acquired virtues) and those which are given directly by God (the infused virtues).


 the acquired virtues point only to the natural end of man, whereas the infused virtues are supernatural


 the theological virtues. These “relate directly to God.


 They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity.


 The theological virtues – faith, hope, and charity – come from God, are infused in the human soul, and lead man back to God as his supernatural and ultimate end.


 faith perfects the intellect, hope and charity perfect the will.


 Even those infused and theological virtues which could not be acquired by human effort but can only be gained through the divine gift, once they are infused in the soul, are capable of being acted upon by the choice of man


 here we see the precise difference between the virtues and the gifts. While the gifts are also stable realities in the soul which, like the infused virtues, are given directly by God, it is yet not possible for man to make an act of the gifts of the Holy Spirit of his own volition. We cannot make acts from the gifts


 The gifts are stable realities in the soul, and they do perfect either the intellect (wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel) or the will (piety, fortitude, fear of the Lord).


 acts proceed from the gifts only upon the special movement of the Holy Spirit – not from the choice of man


 By the gifts of the Holy Spirit, man is able to act according to a new divine mode. By the theological virtues, he tends toward God as his supernatural end, but still according to a human mode. By the gifts, he is now moved by the Holy Spirit in a divine mode of acting.


 the beatitudes are acts which proceed either from the virtues or from the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, “a man is moved towards, and approaches the happy end by works of virtue, and above all by the works of the gifts, if we speak of eternal happiness, for which our reason is not sufficient, since we need to be moved by the Holy Ghost, and to be perfected with his gifts that we may obey and follow him. Consequently the beatitudes differ from the virtues and gifts, not as habit, but as act from habit.


 beatitude can first be considered as an act of the virtue of humility: “The first beatitude may refer either to a contempt of riches, or to the contempt of honors, which results from humility.


 poverty of Spirit comes from the gift of fear of the Lord


 the gift of fear of the Lord allows a man to be free from attachment to worldly pleasures and delights.


 we must rightly conclude that poverty of Spirit corresponds primarily to the gift of fear of the Lord


 if a man fear God perfectly, he does not, by pride, seek greatness either in himself or in external goods, viz. honors and riches.


 Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.


 by the virtue of hope, our will is moved to desire God as our happiness and last end.


 the gift of fear of the Lord drives us away from sin and toward our loving Savior.


 by the gift of holy fear, the Holy Spirit moves us in a divine mode to fear the loss of our only good and our supreme hope, God himself.