November 3, 2018 Saturday 30th Week in Ordinary Time St. Martin de Porres 1st Reading: Phil 1:18b–26 Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-11
One Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and he was carefully watched.Jesus then told a parable to the guests, for he had noticed how they tried to take the places of honor. And he said, “When you are invited to a wedding party, do not choose the best seat. It may happen that someone more important than you has been invited, and your host, who invited both of you, will come and say to you: ‘Please give this person your place.’ What shame is yours when you take the lowest seat!“Whenever you are invited, go rather to the lowest seat, so that your host may come and say to you: ‘Friend, you must come up higher.’ And this will be a great honor for you in the presence of all the other guests. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Are you good at riddles? Try this: “I sit tall but stand small, I turn around to find a place on the ground to fall. Who am I?” Hold your guesses until we have extracted the better part of its moral lesson. The riddle is mind boggling because from experience we learn that we stand tall but sit down small. In answering the riddle then we rule out human beings, and rightly so because the correct answer is dog. When a dog sits it is taller than when it stands. This takes us deeper into the requisites of humility. In Jesus’ standard of spirituality it seems that things should go the way of animals that go taller when they sit and smaller when they stand. When we soar to the heights by standing up for our inordinate wants, we really appear small in the eyes of God. But when we humble ourselves, God sees us tall.
In the eyes of God, greatness lies in one’s capacity to stoop low. It is hard to be great if such be the measure because our natural tendency is to be served, not to serve. It is more challenging then to be great in the eyes of God than to be great in the eyes of men. The latter only requires that we give in to the human instinct for power and prestige. The former requires that we go against our natural tendencies. Those who persevere in doing this difficult feat of swimming against the tide are great in God’s eyes.
Jesus guaranteed this greatness when he promised that he will elevate the humble and humble the great. This promise comes with an assurance of heaven whose door, like a dog house, can only be accessed by people who stoop low. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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