Humility (22nd Sunday Ordinary C)

In 2007, a Jesuit missionary ended his forty three years of service in what was then the Prelature of Ipil. Fr. Angel Antonio was to be transferred to another assignment. He was willing to leave even if obviously his heart belonged to the mission area where he spent most of his life serving the poor and building their communities. At his farewell party, he was given the opportunity to share his farewell message. People expected him to speak about his great contributions to the local church, describing perhaps his heroic dedication to the mission and the long litany of his sacrifices. But no, this great missionary had only a few words to say. 

He stood up and said something like this, “I have only three words to say: First, thank you for the opportunity given me to serve; Second, I’m sorry for all my failings. You call me Fr. Angel, but I hadn’t always been an angel to you; and lastly, goodbye and pray for me as I face another chapter of my ministry.”

I was misty-eyed looking at the figure of the old man. What humility he had shown! Forty three long years of missionary service and he summed it all up with only a couple of minutes of farewell message devoid of fanfare and self-glorification.

Our readings today allow us to ponder on an essential Christian virtue, humility. In the light of the readings, two perspectives can help us deepen our reflection on the virtue: First, humility as the way to greatness; second, humility as a preferential love for the poor.

Humility as the way to greatness. This has always been an important paradox of our Christian life: In order to be great, one has to be the least of all. The first reading reminds us of this as it says, “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God” (Sir 3:18). Similarly, the gospel reading (Lk 14:1, 7-14) expresses the same paradoxical teaching of our Lord: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 11). Humility is the way to find favor with God; humility leads to exaltation by God.

The parable told by our Lord about the conduct of the invited guests and hosts at a banquet illustrates this truth as well. “Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table” (v. 10).

As a parable this is not to be taken literally as instructions governing table etiquette on where to sit when you are invited at parties. “Sitting at the lowest place” refers to a humble disposition that does not seek honor and glory for oneself. It is a disposition of dependence on God’s graciousness. We do not glorify ourselves; it is God, the Host of the heavenly banquet, who honors and exalts those who have been selfless and humble.

Humility is based on an honest acceptance of ourselves; hence, our business is to be truthful and faithful to who we are and what we can do given our gifts and limitations neither belittling nor boasting ourselves and our accomplishments. And it is God’s business to honor and exalt anyone He sees fit.

Do we possess this disposition of honest self-acceptance and dependence on God’s graciousness? If we do, we are on our way to greatness.

Humility as a preferential love for the poor. In today’s gospel, the Lord ends his parable with an instruction to the host who invited him: “…Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (v.13-14).

Almost always we invite to our table those whom we regard with high esteem because their presence buoys our self-esteem too. We invite those who are close to our hearts and those whom we consider our friends as their presence brings us joy. But for the Lord, humility consists in our preferential love for the poor. He invites us to offer our table to those who are least in society. He invites us to regard the poor with high esteem, to allow them to be close to our hearts and to be our friends.

We take pride in our association with the famous, influential, and wealthy people probably because it feels good to belong to their circle. Besides, our association with them is a social asset. Christian humility invites us to take pride in our friendship with the unknown, voiceless, and poor people and be at ease spending time with them seeing them not as asset nor liability but as persons and as children of God with the same dignity as everyone else.

Are we friends of the poor? 

Doors (21st Sunday Ordinary C)

from cheaptherapy.wordpress.com

In her book, Open the Door, a contemporary spiritual writer, Joyce Rupp creatively explores the many and varied ways through which the image of a door can help us in our inner journey to our true selves. At first, she invites her readers to open the door of their hearts in order to discover the still unraveled beauty and truth within them and even to encounter the Divine Presence within. Later, she counsels them too to have the courage, at some crucial points in life, to close the door as a decisive act of leaving behind everything that hinders their growth towards authenticity and fuller union with God.

There is, indeed, a time to open and a time to close the door. An open door invites and welcomes; a closed door protects that which is cherished inside and excludes the unwanted. This gives us insight into the spiritual rhythm of opening and closing the invisible door of our hearts.

The image of a door is used by Jesus in today’s gospel reading (Lk 13:22-30). To the question whether only few people will be saved Jesus responds quite obliquely with the images of a narrow door and a closed door:

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us’” (v. 24-25).

Image of a Narrow Door. The image of the narrow door conveys both opportunity and difficulty. It invites yet it suggests some degree of struggle. Hence, approaching the narrow door is not by a leisurely walk as strolling in a park. It demands resolve and commitment to give one’s best to be able to enter.

The door to salvation is open for all. Everyone is invited to enter but is reminded of the necessity of striving hard as the passage to salvation is made difficult by our proclivity to sin. God’s grace and mercy is offered for all but our blind sinful inclinations may continue to reject this precious gift; our self-centeredness and foolish pride continues to glorify nothing but ourselves; our attachment to things, power, and fame may rob us of our freedom to choose God. Hence, Jesus warns us of this tendency to be complacent and evokes our free commitment to choose God as our fundamental orientation in our everyday life.

Image of a Closed Door. The closed door further conveys a day of definitive reckoning when those who persisted in their evil deeds will be excluded from the kingdom of God.  “And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out” (v. 28). With the image of a locked door, Jesus delivers his caution with a twist of irony for those who tend to live with an easy assurance of salvation out of privilege. Jesus warns that those who have enjoyed proximity to the master, those who “ate and drank” in his company, will not be acknowledged by the master after all because of their evil deeds. They will be locked out. While people from afar, from the east and west, from the north and south, will have their place at the table in the eschatological banquet.

Salvation, then, is not a matter of privilege given to chosen elite who enjoyed familiarity and physical proximity to the Lord like the Jewish people. Salvation is an invitation given to all people, i.e. even to the gentiles. What it requires is a personal response. The theological question concerning the number of those who will be saved is not actually important after all. What matters most is the existential striving and personal commitment of every person to respond to the invitation through his moral decisions and actions in life.

The Door of our Hearts. It is not farfetched, hence, to say that the image of the narrow or closed door may appropriately represent the door of our hearts. More often than not, we are the ones making it difficult for God’s love and mercy to enter our hearts. Many times we shut Him out because we desire other things in life; we close the door of our hearts because we are afraid to let God take control of our lives. So exteriorly we try to live as near as possible to God but our hearts remain distant.  We carry the name of Christ as his baptized disciples and we spend our time in pious devotions calling him, “Lord, Lord…” but we never care to discern in our hearts his will, much less, to live it out in loving obedience.  

Joyce Rupp asks her readers to open the door of their hearts. Let us open our hearts to God. We will be surprised how well He fits in, for His love and mercy is our heart’s ultimate delight. Rupp also reminds of the necessity of closing the door.  Let us then muster our courage to close the door of our hearts to our self-centeredness and pride and to all our hurts caused by sin.

  

The Fire of Jesus (20th Sunday Ordinary C)

Fire is dangerous. We all learn this important lesson early on in life. In my case I learned it with fear and trembling as a helpless child having to witness the small town of Ipil being razed in fire. I saw this awesome power of fire not only once. Ipil was set on fire again on mysteriously the same date, May 11 of one of the ensuing years. And this was not it. On April 4, 1995, as a grown-up, I survived the “Ipil Massacre” during which the town was set ablaze once more by the Abu Sayaff terrorists and was reduced to ashes.

It’s no small wonder that I and many others would have a hard time dealing with Jesus of today’s gospel (Lk 12:49-53). Jesus announces his mission of setting the earth on fire: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (v. 49).  What?! Is this really Jesus speaking?

The Danger of Discipleship. Our difficulty most probably stems from a sanitized image of Jesus. We have gotten used to seeing Jesus as kind, meek, and merciful. We would imagine him probably as gentle and soft-spoken. And we have come to love Jesus the nice guy. What more, for many, they prefer to deal exclusively with the cute Santo Niño as he is absolutely adorable and fun to relate with. With this favorite but deficient Christological view, we certainly cringe at the thought that Jesus and what He stands for is actually dangerous. And unless we face the truth that Jesus’ mission is dangerous, we will never see the meaning of today’s gospel and we will never know Jesus deeper and hence we will never become his true disciples.  

While gentleness and compassion especially towards the lowly and the suffering are truly Jesus’ qualities, He was nonetheless firm and disturbing towards the self-righteous and the conceited. For the oppressors of the little ones, Jesus was indeed dangerous. His eventual lot on the cross speaks volume about how the world wished and plotted to put off the dangerous fire of Jesus. Jesus’ friends and close followers had a real sense of the danger of standing for Christ and his message.  But they embraced him with total dedication. John the Baptist lost his head. Peter was crucified upside down. Most of the apostles and disciples were persecuted and died as martyrs. Hundred other followers ended up as Nero’s torches.

Today, we tend to turn a blind eye to this disconcerting aspect of Christ and his message. We want a cozy type of discipleship. We want security and comfort. We pray only for blessings. We don’t want a share of the cross. The first homily of Pope Francis was more to the point as he warned his audience: "When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly; we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord.” Pope Francis surely inspires us. He is on fire.

Transformative Christian Message. Fire is not only dangerous. It is also an awesome force of transformation. Nothing that fire touches remains ever the same. Whatever is set on fire is bound to change. Each time the town of Ipil was set on fire, the town was never the same again. The old structures were consumed and turned into ashes. But new and better structures arose later.

Jesus and his message are transformative. Jesus disturbs and calls for change. When He declares how He wants to see the earth ablaze and announces that He brings not peace but division, Jesus is saying: “Do not think that I came to leave you in peace, no, I came to disturb, to upset and to change things. The world will never be the same after I have thrown fire on it” (John Fuellenbach, Throw Fire).

The dangerous fire of Jesus is meant to consume the world’s old structures of sin dominated by evil, self-centeredness, pride, greed, injustices, etc. And how we all should wish with Jesus that these were already blazing so that transformation may come! How we all should wish that the new structures of grace were put in place, that love reigns with justice and peace for the people of God. How we all should feel the anguish of our Lord until the reign of God takes hold of the entire world.

Spirituality of Social Transformation. Are our hearts burning with the fire of Jesus? We can only answer yes when we courageously embrace the danger of being a follower and when we assume the same transformative vision of Jesus. Many a Christian have grown cold and bored because they just want to stay in the safety of their comfort zones concerned solely about the good of the self.  Again Pope Francis warns the Church of this same sickness and wishes her to risk:

“We need to come out of ourselves and head for the periphery… It is true that going out onto the street implies the risk of accidents happening… But if the Church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age… and if I had to choose between a wounded Church that goes out onto the streets and a sick withdrawn Church, I would definitely choose the first one.”

To have the fire of Jesus in our hearts is to be disturbed, shaken, and awakened from the slumber of our passivity or even apathy in the midst of the world’s sinfulness and neglect of the weak. Kindling the fire of Jesus in our hearts is an invitation to a spirituality of social transformation—a spirituality that brings the rich resources of our Christian faith outside the confines of the beautiful adoration chapels onto the streets, the slum, the malls, the halls of power, and everywhere. This spirituality is dangerous and risky. But we have to embrace it, as did the close friends of Jesus, if we were to be faithful to the Lord who wishes to set the earth on fire and to see it blazing.