September 01, 2013
22nd Sunday
in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Sir 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
Second Reading: Heb 12:18-19, 22-24a
Gospel Reading:
Lk 14:1, 7-14
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)
If you think there is little power in humility, think again. It was humility that reduced God to a human being.
Humility even made God suffer the penalty reserved to worst criminals. Nothing else exercises so much power over
God as to make him like a lamb led to the slaughter. That is how powerful humility is.
Humility is the only power God recognizes. In today’s gospel Jesus adversely reacted to people who tried to outdo one another in securing for themselves places of honor at a banquet. Because the only language those people understood was the language of carpetbaggery, Jesus reasoned out with them that there was greater opportunity of getting better accommodation when one chooses the lowest seat. The true disciple, however, has better motivations. He embraces humility because therein he finds true power that sustains him in denying himself, taking up his cross and following Christ.
Without humility, self- denial is self-righteousness, the taking up of one’s cross, stoicism, and the following of Christ hypocrisy. How can a proud person deny himself when he believes he is the center of the universe? How can a proud person take up his cross when he thinks God owes him a good life for being good and righteous? How can a proud person follow Christ when he believes in no one else but himself? No true discipleship happens to a man who is proud. As the First Reading puts it, “We cannot be open to God’s grace unless we put aside our pride.”
If humility is the key to genuine discipleship, then there must be so much power in humility, a power that saves. — Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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