14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2017

There are two parts to the Gospel for this Sunday and they both seem unrelated. The first part is found also in Luke's Gospel. The similarity would suggest that both Evangelists drew inspiration from a common source of material. This part is sometimes called a synoptic thunderbolt from the Johannine sky because the narrative style is atypical of the Evangelists. It is rather evocative of the long discourses found in the Fourth Gospel.

The second part is definitely Matthean--and its connexion to the first reading provides us with the theme of humility. Humility is defined as an ordered virtue that prevents a person from either over-reaching or under-valuing himself. It is opposed to pride as well as to an immoderate abnegation of self to the point that one does not acknowledge God's gifts and to use them accordingly for His greater glory.

In a narcissistic culture that esteems self-idolatry, what place does humility have in Christian spirituality? Not only is our culture narcissistic but it is also one that prizes independence and the virtues of self-reliance and freedom. Thus, the yoke that Jesus proposes finds no place in such a culture. It runs against a convention that views dependency as weakness or subservience. The heroic virtues associated with sanctity does not rhyme with Romanticism's unique individual who grapples alone with whatever curve balls life throws at it. He is a self-sufficient hero with the strength of character to go against the flow as personified by mavericks like Macgyver or Indiana Jones. How is humility to be conceived in such characters? For them, humility is almost like an attribute that one possesses. Hence, for the self-made man, to be called "humble' certainly looks good on one's resumé.

But, if humility is considered a moral virtue, then it is substantially an expression of a relationship. In other words, humility is relational. At the beginning, I mentioned the apparent unrelatedness between the two parts of the Gospel. Actually, the so-called Johannine Discourse reveals a deep affection that exists between Jesus and His Father. It is an intense intimacy that we have been invited to. It is within this familiarity that humility makes sense. The yoke is therefore a potent symbol of knowledge rather than a shameful sign of slavery. Otherwise, emptied of its relational content, humility can only appear as a caricature of what it is not supposed to be--a kind of pusillanimity or rather a timidity of spirit. And if it were merely an attribute, then it describes someone who is pretty much congenial.

How do we preach humility in a go-getter society without it coming across as pusillanimous? If humility is relational, then it is also a virtue for heaven. When God is not in our picture, we will always be afraid that we might lose out. For example, the need to "justify" oneself. Here, the reference is not to the notion of justification and salvation but rather the need to explain oneself. Our fear has conflated both misunderstanding with loss in the sense that to be misunderstood signals a certain loss. Thus, I want my superiors or bosses to understand me. We all inhabit a wounded world holding on to the myth that our stories are not complete unless they are told. Is it any wonder why we need to have biopics or docudramas and our ever present eulogies delivered at Masses?

But, how about letting the Lord complete our stories, not here but in heaven?

Humility is a relationship with heaven. Saint Augustine termed it a fundamental virtue. So, when we describe a person as humble, it may come across as if it were a virtue possessed. The thing is, we do not "possess" it. When we consider the disparate parts of the Gospel, that is, the Johannine discourse and the invitation to bear the yoke of a humble Jesus, then we realise that humility is less an attribute possessed and more a relationship entered into.

To be humble requires that one has a relationship with both the Lord and heaven we are destined for. A recognition that one can afford not to fight not because of fear but because there is confidence in the Lord and that a loss here on earth of prestige, honour and power is never a loss in absolute terms. According to Saint Teresa of Avila, humility is truth. If it is truth about who I am, then humility is also truth about who God is. He is the only one who will never betray our trust in Him. Saint John Vianney counsels that one should pray for the grace to know that we are nothing of ourselves, and that our corporal as well as our spiritual welfare proceeds from God alone. Hence, without humility being a relational virtue, it will become be a parody of what it is supposed to be.

C.S. Lewis reminds us: Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. God can be trusted to think of us more than we can ever that it is possible to think oneself less. Thus, humility is not so much a "quality" that one possesses but a relationship that one enters into. It is within this familiarity that saintly counsels make sense: "O Master, grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my soul" or "Teach me to serve You as You deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to seek for reward, save that of knowing that I do Your will".

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Have you heard this alternative story about four people who went to see the Wizard of Oz to ask for gifts and these four were not Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion. One asked for valour, the second for courage, the third for patience and finally the last for humility. Guess who went away looking like the Ugly Duckling?

It is a joke but never mind if you did not get it because it was just an illustration of the theme of this Sunday’s readings. In general, they point in the direction of humility. The first reading praises the person who is humble, a person who is conscious of who he really is. This person will find favour with God. It ties in with the Gospel where the key phrase is “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the man who humbles himself will be exalted”.

However, in a world where cosmetics is champion, humility is certainly a virtue that is best forgotten or ignored like the Ugly Duckling. And yet, it was humility that saved the world. Christ humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on the Cross. The second reading does not exactly put it in that way but it certainly gives the impression that the gathering of the New Jerusalem is around the Mediator of the New Covenant. Who is He but the one who is humble, whom God has exalted and given a name which is above every name and at whose name, all creation must bend.

If humility saves the world and yet we are caught in a world which views humility as the Ugly Duckling, how can we better appreciate the humility necessary for the salvation of our souls?

St Ignatius speaks of humility as three modes of being. The first mode of humility is characterised by lowering myself in as much as I can, so that I will be obedient to God’s law. In this mode of humility, I will not commit mortal sin. This basically characterises many of us. We try to live decent lives and not commit mortal sins. The second mode of humility is better than the first as it consists of a “detached” disposition. In as much as God can be glorified and my salvation can be assured, I choose neither poverty nor riches, neither honour nor dishonour, neither long life nor short life. The analogy here is the equilibrium of a see-saw. And here, I would not commit a venial sin. It is the nature of holiness that when we embark upon the path of holiness, not only do we try to refrain from mortal sins, we also try to conquer venial sins It is an ascetical ascent as we dispose ourselves to God’s grace. But, for many of us, the difficulty might be in the commission of venial sins. We are too attached to them to let go. For example, gossip is a sin too delicious to let go of. Finally, the third mode of humility consists of this: All things being equal, for the greater glory of God and for the salvation of my soul, I desire and choose to be with Christ poor rather than wealth, contempt with Christ laden with it rather than honours. Even further, I desire to be regarded as a useless tool for Christ, who before me was regarded as such, rather than a wise and prudent person in this world. This is close identification as I choose to follow Christ on the royal road to Calvary.

Now, not only do we live in a world where cosmetics is champion, we also live in a world where competition is champion. For example, those of us who give the “middle finger” at a car that cuts into our lane, we may view it as a venial sin which we no longer think twice of committing. But, a closer inspection will reveal that it is not so much a venial sin as it represents an insatiable need to win. Tell me you have never purposely inched your way closer to the car in front of you so that the car in the emergency lane cannot cut into yours? Of course, you reason that the manners of Malaysian drivers leave much to be desired and that is why you will not allow the person in but still, the real rationale is because we do not want to be a loser—the one who has no guts to challenge the other driver. Humility = weakness.

The truth is, it is not a mark of humility to let the other person through. It is not a mark of humility that sends the message out: step all over me. What is humility is perhaps the curbing of our desire to win all the time. And it cuts across every facet of our lives and not just our driving etiquette. In arguments, I do not need to have the last word. Let me give an example. By telling you this story, I think I am going to “sin”. At our recent pilgrimage in Lourdes, I had a fall in the toilet. According to an email sent to me, I fell because I was pissed drunk. I attempted to reply to the email but it back-fired. Finally, I just left it at that. Why? I did not have to justify myself and more importantly, there was no need to win the argument. Now why have I “sinned”? I am well aware that even by this little revelation I have “attempted to justify myself”. I seemed to have the last word! The point is, between friends, siblings and spouses—this is often the scenario—the need to justify or have the last word.

This is where we need to differentiate between “neurosis” and “kenosis”. Humility is self-emptying—kenosis—like Christ who emptied Himself of His divinity. But, some of us may mistake “neurosis” to be “kenosis”. What is neurosis? Let me give a working definition. Let us say we have a student who is a masochist and a teacher who is a sadist. At the end of the year, the teacher decides not to set an exam. Everyone cheers except this one student, the masochist. Humility and suffering are companions and the point is that not all suffering endured is humility. It could just be a neurosis; much like the masochistic student who loved to be "punished" with exams.

A holy priest in Manila used to remark that those who seek humility may be sinful. His explanation was that in order for us to feel humble, somebody has to sin. There is truth in what he said. Neurosis is a false sense of humility and there is a thin line between neurosis and kenosis. Here, the Ignatian principle might help. “All things being equal” meaning that if it does not involve sin, then we choose to stand with Christ humiliated. This is where true kenosis is. A suitable interpretation to explain this is when a situation is really beyond our control, it is when we begin to exercise humility. Humiliation is not something we actively search for but whenever we choose to follow Christ, be assured that there will be humiliation.

Finally, humility as a virtue needs to be supported by the Resurrection. Perhaps, humility’s struggle to be accepted as a viable virtue is but a reflexion of our struggle in believing the Resurrection. In a world where competition has gone wrong, humility is crowded out because we believe that the last and final word must be uttered in this world. But we are assured by the Gospel. “When you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; that they cannot pay you back means that you are fortunate, because repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again. The final word does not need be uttered in this world because the Resurrection gives us the assurance that our faith will be vindicated. Thus, to be truly humble, you need to hold to the truth of the Resurrection.

Holy Thursday Year B

What can we say of Jesus’ washing the feet of the disciples? The early Church interpreted it as a symbol of baptism and later as the sacrament of reconciliation. Today, a common interpretation brings together three themes, namely, the Priesthood, the Eucharist and Service. In the first place, Priesthood and the Eucharist are inter-related. Without the Priesthood there is no Eucharist and without the Eucharist, there is no Priesthood. [1] Both the Priesthood and the Eucharist must flow into service. The example of Jesus calls for humility and thus we are invited to embrace the humility of the God made Man, the humility of God Himself.

Today I would like to link humility with beauty because the humble action of Christ can be seen in the context of beauty. There is beauty in the action of Christ in washing the feet of the disciples. In some way I am embarrassed because the linkage of humility and beauty seems to be a justification for what we are doing with respect to our renovation project. But, give me a hearing and perhaps you will see where I am coming from.

I received an email the other day from a parishioner. It was about the fear of retrenchment. This parishioner’s husband was the “oldest” in the office and as the oldest, when the axe falls, he would be the first to go. I suspect this scenario is not alien to many of us.

Why am I telling you this? Well, first of all, when the economy is in a crunch, the first to go is the inefficient (theoretically, but it is not always the case in the present government... but that’s neither my concern nor criticism). The economy which affects a very large section of our everyday life is governed very much by the law of the practical. What is most practical when there is only so much money is to get rid of the older staff and to hire younger ones. For the same amount of output that is desired, the saving is made from paying lower salary. Experience is important but still most multi-nationals are primarily governed by this criterion. They go to where they can get the cheapest labour.

Whenever the criterion of practical reason is applied to the fullest, the disabled, the poor, the aged, the sick will all fall through the cracks. Euthanasia, which is seemingly governed by a compassion for the sufferer, is actually acting out this principle of practicality. What’s the point of hanging on to dear life when you cannot enjoy it at all?

So, what can protect us from such practical harshness?

It is beauty. Beauty has with it an element of the impractical. Beauty is not useful. It is inspiring but not necessarily useful. But, beauty draws us out of ourselves, out of our practical world into another realm. Beauty belongs to the realm of the Sacred. Interestingly, the Priesthood deals with the Sacred. In a world technologically advanced, the realm of the sacred is getting smaller. When the boundary of the sacred recedes before us, the priest is either loved [2] or maligned because he is no longer practical. [3] But his function is needed to protect us from the inhuman brunt of practical knowledge. Practical knowledge is good because we need it to organise the world we live in but if this world that we live in is not in touch with the sacred, it becomes harsh. It looks at people as useful or useless... it proceeds recklessly along the path of utility.

Today, the washing of the feet is inviting us to service, if you like, humble service. But it is also inviting us to contemplate the beauty of truth who is Christ the Lord because humble service, good as it may be, can also be infected by practicality. Mother Teresa was able to serve the poorest of the poor not because she was humble but because she saw the beauty of Christ AND because she embraced Him, she embraced those whom society would reject as not useful.

It is sobering then that we come today to witness not just the humility of Christ in service. We come to witness Christ who beautifully serves those whom He chose for His own. It is an invitation for us to gaze at Him and right after Mass, this is exactly what we will do during the Solemn Adoration and after midnight, the Silent Adoration in the chapel. Hans Urs Balthazar says, "We can be sure that whoever sneers at Beauty's name…can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love”. (Preface to the Glory of the Lord).

Our service must be marked by humility. But it is decidedly inspired by the beauty of Christ. Let us gaze at the Beauty of Christ so that we may pray better, love better and serve better.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] This has grave implication for the promotion of vocation to priesthood. If we accept the premise that the ministerial priesthood belongs to the definition of Church, then it cannot be that Christ has stopped calling for more priests for His Church, His Body.
[2] The so-called “so priest-centred” phenomenon is coming from here. Lay people are not as necessarily priest-centred as they are in desiring that their conduit to the sacred not be cut off.
[3] In this, we can see the ferocity of the anger against paedophilia. First of all, it is heinous to take advantage of the young and helpless. We may be more conscientised or have become more aware of the crime against the young... but the fact is, sexual predation has always existed in the past. This does not excuse the actions of the paedophile but the ferocity against the so-called “priest-paedophiles” may be seen from this perspective that it is because the “sacred” is no longer relevant for the “everyday life” that it explains why we are angry with this “useless” priest for intruding into our lives. When mediation with the sacred is important, I suspect that’s also when the less perfect behaviour of the priest is tolerated. The function of a priest is either important or he is ignored.

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Many people know Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean but he’s better as a speaking comedian. In one of his speaking episodes he plays the Devil welcoming people to hell. His task is to sort the people out and he starts by grouping them. “Murderers, murderers over here please. Thank you. Looters and pillagers over here. Thieves if you could join them. And lawyers, you’re in that lot”. [1]

Last week, we heard a parable of a Pharisee and a Tax-Collector in the Temple. We are told that what separates the two of them is humility. The tax-collector was humble and as a result, he ended up at right with God. This week, we hear an incident instead of a parable involving a Tax-Collector named Zacchaeus. Just like lawyers being grouped together with thieves, looters and pillagers, tax-collectors are by common prejudice often grouped into the same category. Furthermore, all descriptions seem to point him out as an unjust man. He was a senior tax collector, a wealthy man and the crowd complained that Jesus had gone to stay at a sinner’s house. The prejudice against him was overwhelming; never mind the fact that the name Zacchaeus is formed from a Hebrew word which means clean, pure and innocent.

So today, perhaps Zacchaeus, “clean, pure and innocent” can deepen our understanding of humility. He is humble because he stands his ground. They deem him rich, greedy and a sinner but he claims to give half his property to the poor. The tense used in our gospel is “I am going to give”, a future tense, but in Greek the tense used is present suggesting that he customarily and repeatedly helps the poor. And to further substantiate his claim, he makes conditional statement that IF he had cheated anybody, he would pay back 4 times what he had cheated. Torah itself only decrees that thieves should repay 120 percent. Roman Law dictates that convicted criminals should repay 400 percent of what had been stolen. Here we have someone who’s not convicted except by prejudice, a man who more than fulfils the criteria of Jewish Torah and Roman law.

A person like Zacchaeus is able to stand his ground only if he has a healthy sense of self-esteem. In order to be humble, like the unnamed Tax-Collector last week and Zacchaeus this week, we need a healthy sense of self-esteem. But, you know what? Unfortunately poor self-esteem or the lack of it is often mistaken for humility—a mistake which sometimes produces deadly results. People who are bullied may just brush if off because they don’t think that they need to defend their dignity and they think (especially Christians) that it is humility not to fight back. But underneath it all, the person who has no measure of self-esteem/self-worth to defend himself or herself grows greater in depression and self-hatred. The incidences of “going postal” that we read about in the USA[2], like Columbine High or Virginia Tech (this April where a Korean student massacred many) have some connexion with the fatal lack of self-esteem.

There are many reasons but a reason why many of us have such poor self-esteem is because we are a generation seemingly obsessed with success—material success. But that is not actually our fault because our self-esteem is consistently assaulted or battered by the constant barrage of suggestions that we do not have enough to be happy. This is what I can afford to drive: a run-down car but I am constantly buffeted by winds of “not safe enough, not prestigious enough, not big enough”. A society (race or community) that constantly tells us that we need to market ourselves—to project ourselves—is a society which is also at the same time insecure or suffers from poor self-esteem. Perhaps that explains why the Keris or Malay native dagger needs to be unsheathed and waved year after year and cultural justifications are given, as if we were stupid.

We instinctively shy away or react against people who are selfish. The problem is that when people are not comfortable with themselves, they tend to focus more on themselves: their needs, their true identity, their search for meaning and satisfaction. A selfish society, an ego-centred world is rather symptomatic of a society that is not at home with itself. Selfish people are usually people with poor self-esteem. It is a vicious cycle.

Self-esteem thus consists of knowing, accepting and in a sense being at peace with who you are. It is easy to say: know, accept and be at peace with who you are but it is not. We are afraid that we are never good enough, what we have is lacking and is not acceptable. A healthy self-worth, that is to stand one’s ground, also demands that we dare look at the ugliness of our sins because being at peace is not an excuse to remain in a state of sin. If you like, self-esteem is really the measure of our worth before God. I stand before God as I am… not as I would ideally like to be or want to be. [3] It takes a lot of courage to believe that God can accept this “me”, all warts and pimples. That realisation is the stepping stone of self-esteem. That is why after confession, I tell the penitent: “For your penance (actually penance, in this case, is really an insult to God)… rather for your prayer, go to the Blessed Sacrament. Self-esteem is best cultivated or nurtured before the one who, in the first place gave it back to us… If you want to measure your true worth, stand before God because true self-worth is not a construct. It doesn’t come through self-help programmes.

You know, every Jesuit is invited to embrace the 3rd Degree of humility where one embraces insults for the sake of Christ. Humility presupposes a crucial and important element of accepting who we are. To give up honour, prestige, entitlement and to accept insult presupposes that you give up something valuable. Teresa of Avila says that humility is living the truth. This means that unless you own yourself, that is, live and accept the truth of who you are, it is hard to give up what you don’t have and own in the first place. A person cannot suffer insult for God if he or she doesn’t know even how to love himself or herself the way God does. Therefore, it’s not possible to be humble without a healthy sense of the self. And it’s not possible to embrace the will of God without humility.

Footnotes:
[1] Fornicators if you could step forward. My God, there are a lot of you. Could I split you up into adulterers and the rest? Male adulterers can you just form a line in front of the small guillotine in the corner there? Then he proceeds to insult the French and the Germans. The English, French and Germans have a history…
[2] The term originated from the cases in the US Postal Service where employees who, due to job stress or other traumatic influence, have murdered co-workers on the job, usually with a firearm. Now it means general insanity that includes violence through firearm. The incidents in Virginia Tech and Columbine High are two good examples.
[3] After the Fall, human history consists of running away from a God who dares to face us in our nakedness. We are constantly trying to cover ourselves with fig leaves. Fig leaves represent the “ephemeral” search for the “self” bolstered by “wealth or honour”.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

There are three things which a person ought to do in order to be considered virtuous. Virtue consists of praying, fasting and almsgiving—ties in very much with our Lenten observance, if you remember. So, on the one hand, we have the Pharisee who actually fulfils all these three conditions. He prays, he pays tithe and he fasts. And yet he is not held up by Jesus to be a model of virtue. On the other hand, we have the Tax-Collector. He belongs to the class which is traitorous because it colludes with the Roman invaders in taking advantage of the local population. In the parable, the table is turned because he who is seemingly “virtuous”, who does the right thing is not at right with God and instead the contrary is true. A reversal of roles made possible only because of the virtue of humility.

Today, it might be good then to dwell a little more on the long forgotten virtue of humility. We do so by taking a closer look at pride for our friend the Pharisee’s attitude may help us understand better what humility consists of. We are not as distracted as we are disturbed by the Pharisee’s action of gloating over the inability of the Tax-Collector to live up to his standard. He seems to be saying “I am better than this Tax-Collector”, but in reality, the tenor of his prayer is characterised by an attitude that says, “God, here I am doing you a favour”. The Pharisee was self-sufficient, so he wasn’t really comparing himself to the Tax-Collector as he was telling God this: “God, I am good enough to stand before you, before you as your equal”. We never think that we can be like that because we commonly or colloquially describe pride as “don’t action lah” and we have words like “arrogance, vanity, superiority or self-importance” and these words are applied to our relationship with others. We don’t like it when someone comes across as “arrogant”. But in reality, pride has to do with trying to stand equal before God. Lucifer is our perfect example. He was the most beautiful, the brightest and the most intelligent of all the angels. Beauty and light are synonymous with intelligence and truth and the name “Lucifer” means the “bearer of light”. But, Lucifer was blinded by his own light and he became the source of his own glory. He turned away from God as his source of inspiration and light and as a result, committed the sin of pride.

Pride affects us more than we dare to think. The history of mankind is a history of trying to be God. Let me give a couple of examples. The Tower of Babel is testimony to pride. It wasn’t just that we wanted to reach heaven but we wanted to tell God that we could do so with our own strength. Or, how many of you feel that going to confession is a waste of time? The usual comments I hear are “Why go for confession when I am going to sin again” and “I am confessing the same sin again and again”. Confession may seem to focus on our sins but really it is more a celebration of God’s merciful love for us. Therefore, to think only in terms of sin is perhaps to commit the sin of pride for the person who says, “Why go for confession when I am going to sin again” is actually saying, “God, let me come before you only when I am perfect. Only when I esteem myself as your equal will I stand before you”. [Lord, I am worthy to stand before you not because of You but I am worthy because of me]. When a person despairs of his sins, it could be a sign of false humility and a symptom of pride more than anything else. The unasked question: “Why can’t I be like God who does not sin?”

The point is, I go for confession and I confess the same sins too. In doing so, I express a trust that God’s mercy will shield me from His fierce judgement. The point is that we sin and acceptance of it is the beginning of humility. The Pharisee would have done himself a lot more good if he had stood there and said, “God, I am good only because you are good to me”. If pride makes one an equal of God, then humility makes one acknowledge God as the superior and accept His authority.

We are fascinated by those who came from India or China with nothing on their backs except their shirts. Now they are multimillionaires. We live in an era of the self-made man or woman. The rags-to-riches man is emblematic or a mascot of "having arrived". And we are guided by this philosophy that “to be” is to be self-made, self-taught, self-directed. In fact, Abraham Maslow, in the earlier days of his theory of human personality understood the fulfilment of human potential in terms of self-actualisation. To be is to be self-actualised.

While it is not bad to be self-made or self-actualised, what is required is that we grow in awareness of our dependence on God. When we refuse to accept our creaturely relationship with God, then we will, like Lucifer begin to look at ourselves, our achievements, our capabilities etc as the source of glory.

When we no longer acknowledge God, then we will find it hard to acknowledge what God intends to teach us through His Church—what can the Church teach us? Obedience fosters humility, but who needs to obey, who needs to listen to anyone else when one is the source of one’s own glory?

Humility is the forgotten virtue. Humility comes from the Latin word “humus” meaning soil or earth. The humble person is one who stands before God with his or her feet firmly planted in the ground. It is easy to think that the Pharisee suffered from being self-righteous or judgemental. But it is more profound than being judgemental. The Tax-Collector stood there knowing that with God and before God, humility is the only posture possible a creature can take before his creator. He has come to the profound realisation that of his own, he was worth nothing but with God, he was worth everything.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Catholics are often criticised for not knowing the Bible. But, really they do. It’s just that they are not show-offs. Otherwise, how do we explain the universal [Catholic] behaviour of coming to Church but seating at the back of the Church? Isn’t that what the Gospel tells us to do? “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honour. If someone else more important has been invited, you would surely be asked to take a lower place”. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Catholics don’t know the bible. We are obedient, even unconsciously so.

But, what Catholics may need to know about not taking the place of honour is what true humility consists in. Jesus, if you read the Gospel is not against “honour” per se. If he were against honour, then he would not have accepted the invitation to the feast given by the Pharisees. The Pharisees apparently considered Jesus to be of their status which explains why they invited him in the first place. Honour, in the context of the Gospel, is a cultural phenomenon translated into the ever familiar “face”. The fear of losing face is very ingrained in some cultures so much so that honour is valued over and above family relationships. For example, brothers have been known to kill their sister, for daring to fall in love with an outsider, all in the name of upholding the honour of the family.

Since honour is about maintaining the status quo, then Jesus is against the wall of “exclusivity” or status quo erected by honour. Honour prevents people from reaching out. Honour prevents people from coming in. For example, one of the reasons why some BECs are not functioning as well as they should has something to do with honour. In the Gospel, Jesus mentions about inviting people who can repay the courtesy. What happens is that because we feel that our home, our humble abode is below the dignity of our more well-to-do brothers and sisters, we shy away from BECs because to be part of the BEC means that we might be forced to open our homes to others thus exposing our humble abode to the possibility of a loss of honour.

This wall of “exclusivity” can only be broken down by humility. Shying away from BECs or sitting at the back or outside is not really humility. If you think about it, honour and humility are not two poles apart. But in fact, true honour is synonymous with humility. St Teresa Avila says that humility is truth and true humility means accepting who we really are. Have you encountered people whom when you praise them are far too modest to accept your praise? A person who suffers from inferiority complex or has poor self-esteem may seem to be humble but he/she is not because humility is born of an inner certitude that you possess an intrinsic value that matters to God. It takes a lot more humility to accept the truth about us. There was this girl with the ugliest face you have ever seen. Once, as I was distributing Holy Communion, she came up and as I looked up to give communion, I nearly let out a gasp. But, she on the other hand, was not self-conscious about her “ugly” look. Whatever others may think of her, she had already come to terms with the truth of how she looked. When we have come to accept the truth of who we are, we begin to let go of the things that we use to make us bigger than who we are. True humility liberates or brings freedom from the need to prove oneself.

Otherwise, life would be like what Jesus described: jostling for the first place of honour. Once, the mayor of a town invited all the people of the town to a banquet. Among those who showed up was John, a man of scholarly wisdom. The mayor invited him to sit at the main table but John refused, thanking the major and insisting to sit where the poor sat. One after another the guests arrived. The more distinguished ones naturally chose to sit at the main table—nearer to the stage, more in the limelight, etc. Soon, all seats were taken except the one table at the fringe where John sat. There was only one empty seat. And as it was fashionable, one very distinguished guest arrived. The mayor had no choice but to show him to the marginal table at the fringe. The distinguished guest protested: This table is too far from the centre of action. It’s a fringe table. “No,” said the mayor, “this is the main table”. “I don’t understand it” answered the man. “Wherever John sits is the main table”, the mayor replied.

And exactly where can we find this main table? Here at this Eucharist. At this table we can be who we are because it is a celebration of humility. We encounter Jesus our host. But he is a host unlike the Pharisee. Here at our celebration, there are no special places. You sit where you want because before Jesus we are all equal. With Jesus, every place is an honoured place.

The Gospel tells us very much that it is not our station in life that makes us honourable—not what we possess, not what rank we have achieved that makes us honourable. Rather it’s who we are inside that makes us honourable. Furthermore, the more honoured one is, the more one must be at the service of others. The 1st Reading says “the greater you are, the more you should behave humbly”. Jesus our host is the perfect model and example: His state was divine yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as men are, and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a Cross.

He was God but be became slave for all of us.