The common theme running through today’s readings is clearly that of humility. Once held in high esteem, the virtue of humility is unfortunately less and less valued by our present secularized society.
In today’s highly competitive world that estimates self-assurance and audacity as pre-requisite to getting to the top, humility is considered a weakness and even a liability. Since the advent of Enlightenment, the world has increasingly lost its understanding and appreciation of humility. The Scottish philosopher, David Hume, sees humility not as a virtue, but as a vice because it prevents one from flourishing and accomplishing. And that is how the world thinks today. Ambition is in, modesty is out. How else would you explain the continued adulation and support of the American public for Donald Trump (and his kind) given all his brazen egomania and sickening hubris?
Even in the area of spirituality, the understanding of humility has become somewhat vague and sometimes confusing. The current schools of psycho-spirituality which promote a “healthy sense of self-worth” do not always succeed in reconciling their novel approach with the classical thoughts of saints and mystics on self-abnegation.
What is humility? What do the readings of today say about humility? The first reading tells us that humility makes us pleasing both to man and God. How true! We all experience how tiresome and unbearable it can be to have to listen to someone who talks only of himself (I, me, mine). Even Jesus cannot stand the hypocritical show of the scribes and Pharisees.
The gospel records two stories on banquets: one about being a good guest and the other about being a good host. The Lord does not intend to give us a lesson on dining etiquette, much less an advice on how to promote oneself by applying the tactic of phony self-abasement (pa-humble effect). The stories are parables about the kingdom of God. Remember how the evangelists, particularly Luke, often speak about the kingdom of God as a banquet? The first parable is a reminder of the need to find one’s place in the kingdom by being humble. The lesson is summarized in the Lord’s words, “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The kingdom of God is the reversal of all that the world holds important. In front of God, we see ourselves and others as we are. We realize that we are all equal in the eyes of God, rendering ranks and positions irrelevant. We also realize that we are all equally little, weak and totally in need of God. Thus, Jesus teaches that the truly “blessed are the poor, the meek, the persecuted… for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3ff)
The meaning of humility is further deepened in the second parable where Jesus suggests that when holding a banquet, we are to invite those who are unable to repay. Humility does not only make us see the truth about our lowliness; it also disposes us to value and love those who like us are lowly. In fact, the purpose of the virtue humility is to serve the higher virtue of charity. A humility that does not lead to love is not true humility. St. Catherine of Siena depicts humility as the ground in which the tree of charity, the mother of all other virtues, is planted and from which it is nourished.
Finally, the ultimate revelation of the parables is that in the kingdom, it is God himself who prepares the banquet for us, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind…”*
