Loving Through Humility

We find true, lasting, limitless power in love.  Those who serve become great.  However, if we raise ourselves above others, we will be lowered.  Yet if we lower ourselves, we will be raised up.  As we bow before others, we are empowered to lift others up.  Thus, if we are humble, we will love our neighbor as ourselves.*  

And so in today's Gospel reading, we hear that Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying 

The greatest among you must be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.**  

The greatest one among us has served us, and has served us better than anyone else.  Jesus came to serve.***  He taught us The Word in all He said and did, and thus in His great love for us, He showed us that He is The Way, The Truth and The Life.****  He has loved us so much that He was obedient even unto death, death on a cross,***** so that we would be saved from our sins.  

If we too wish to be great, then we too must serve.  A servant is not greater than his master.******  We should not expect to be greater than Jesus.  When hardship befalls us, we should remember that we too are expected to suffer, just as Jesus suffered and died for us.  We are to die to ourselves so we can live for our neighbor, just as Jesus died for us.  

Essentially, we are called to consent to being humbled, just as Jesus gave His assent to His Heavenly Father humbling Him.  We are called to humility.  

Here we are not presented with easy work.  Our egos tend to get in the way.  I am reminded of an interaction someone related to me.  A young woman I know very well described how she was standing in a busy cafe.  A middle-aged woman who appeared impoverished was also standing at the counter in the process of ordering an item.  This older woman kept glancing nervously at a shopping cart loaded with personal items, which was stationed just outside the cafe.  The young woman gestured to the older woman and the merchandise she wanted.  The younger woman altruistically offered, "I'll get that for you."  

The older woman immediately and indignantly rebuffed the younger woman's generous offer, scoffing, "Oh, no, you won't!"  The younger woman was surprised and silently backed away.  The older woman seemed like she was too proud to accept help from someone else.  

Yet if we raise ourselves up, sooner or later we will be humbled.  At some point we will realize that we need others to help us.  The twentieth century Trappist monk Thomas Merton pointed out that "no man is an island."  If we isolate ourselves, we cannot survive.  

Yet if we acknowledge our weakness, we embrace the reality of our own humanity.  When we admit that we need others, we see the true nature of being human.  Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche residential communities for intellectually disabled persons, has noted, "If we deny our weakness and the reality of death, if we want to be strong and powerful always, we deny a part of our being, we live an illusion...  To be human is to be bonded together, each with our weaknesses and strengths, because we need each other.  

When we admit our needs, we are humble, since we are seeing ourselves as we really are.  If we acknowledge that we must rely on each other, we touch the reality of life.  

Otherwise we are destined for disaster, to have no peace.  Saint Teresa of Calcutta has explained, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."  When we proudly insist on being completely independent of all others, we are setting ourselves up for ruin.  

However, we are set and ready to aid others if we but humble ourselves.  We witness this truth in the lives of many saints over the course of millenia.  Saint Anthony of Egypt, a great saint who was considerably sanctified during his life on earth in the third and fourth centuries, saw in a revelation numerous spiritual snares laid out in front of him.  It seemed that no matter where he would step, he was going to get caught and fall.  He prayed to God, asking Him what could possibly get him through such treacherous terrain.  He was told that with humility, he could successfully traverse such hazardous spiritual landscape.  

Saint Anthony lived for decades as a monk in the Egyptian desert.  He survived on what people brought to him.  Upon his consenting to his being so humbled, God greatly blessed Saint Anthony.  Through him God healed those who came to him.  

Once Saint Anthony had given his assent to being humbled, in effect he had agreed to let God use him as an instrument to heal others in the world, to kindle others' faith in God.  When a person, such as Saint Anthony, or like our Blessed Mother Mary, obediently acquiesces and submits to the will of God, God will utilize that person, helping others through her, since she has become an appropriate vehicle for positive change in the world due to her humility.  

At the time we may view humbling circumstances as embarrassing and demoralizing, but if we have faith in God, in time we come to realize that God will work wonders through such apparent misfortune.  Through our hardships we can come to better understand the difficulties others suffer, and thus we can become better equipped to help them.  

Thus the fifteenth century monk and priest Thomas a Kempis wrote that 

It often happens that after great consolation there comes profound desolation, or troublesome temptation, or bodily unease, or aggravation on the part of men, or loss of friends, or attacks of the enemy, or disturbance of soul, or derision from children or reproof from elders, or harsh correction by superiors.  All these are designed to humble the pride in our hearts, so that we might have compassion on those who are ill as well as on those who are tempted and troubled.  

When calamity strikes, understandably we feel overwhelmed.  However, we are not offered pointless agony when we encounter catastrophes.  If we look by the light of faith, that light by which God seeks to illumine the path before us, we can see that a deeper meaning rests below the surface of the apparent misfortune which has befallen us.  

In the midst of the adversity we face, and the greater understanding we are being given of others' suffering, we are being trained to comprehend others' plight, we are being led to be more compassionate, and thus to better love our neighbor.  How do we respond to such invitations from God?  Do we become angry at God?  Or do we realize that God is inviting us to open our hearts in the midst of trials and tribulations, so that, through intense pain, we can learn to love with greater hearts?  

In effect, when we find ourselves in the midst of humbling circumstances, in how we respond, we are faced with the question on which we will be judged for all of the choices we make in our entire lives.  When we are presented with chances to be humbled amidst afflictions, it really comes down to the question, are we going to choose to love?  

* Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

** Matthew 23:11-12; Matthew 20:26; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14  
*** Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; Luke 22:27; John 13:1-15  

**** John 14:6 

***** Philippians 2:8 

****** John 15:20 

Giving Of Ourselves

At every single instant we are faced with monumental choices.  In the tiny spaces of life we find intersections of various choices before us, choices which appear not to deserve much consideration, yet which have gigantic significance.  With every choice we make, whether it seems tremendous or inconsequential, we decide whether or not we are valuing the opportunities God has given us as his agents to love others.  

We might think that only the decisions which appear to be immense have great impact.  While over the centuries it seems that some of us have made such momentous choices spontaneously, we must not believe that we cannot be useful instruments in the Hand of God for effecting great change if we do not make giant leaps all at once.  God calls us to radically follow Him, in steps both large and small.  

And so earlier this week we heard in the Gospel that 

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,
knelt down before him, and asked him,
"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good?
No one is good but God alone.
You know the commandments: You shall not kill;
you shall not commit adultery;
you shall not steal;
you shall not bear false witness;
you shall not defraud;
honor your father and your mother."
He replied and said to him,
"Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth." 
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,
"You are lacking in one thing.
Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor
and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
At that statement, his face fell, 
and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,
"How hard it is for those who have wealth
to enter the Kingdom of God!"
The disciples were amazed at his words.
So Jesus again said to them in reply,
"Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God."
They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves,
"Then who can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said,
"For men it is impossible, but not for God.

All things are possible for God."*  

The young man went away despondent, for he was very rich.  Perhaps he was visualizing selling everything he had all at once.  

We can become discouraged if we try to imagine doing too much all at once.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  We cover a very long distance a little bit at a time.  

This is the norm.  The vast majority of the time, human beings do not make major changes in the blink of an eye.  

However, when we are willing to humble ourselves, God gives us the grace to perform remarkable deeds.**  In the third century, while he was in church, Saint Anthony of Egypt heard this Gospel passage about the rich young man.  When Saint Anthony heard it, he felt called by God to do as he had just heard, so he went out and sold everything he had.  He gave most of the money to those who were poor, keeping only a small amount for the care of his sister.  He then devoted himself to a life of prayer and asceticism, yet he also healed and advised those who came to him.  

Saint Anthony was enabled to sell everything he had, to give the proceeds to those who were impoverished, and to go and follow Jesus because God had empowered him to do so.  On his own, Saint Anthony would not have been able to renounce himself and follow Jesus.  Since God had given him the grace and the strength to give up all he had, he considered it all worthless,*** and gave it all away for the sake of Jesus and the message of love of God and love of one's neighbor which Jesus preached.  

Rather than huge steps, usually we assent to being humbled bit by bit.  Typically we agree to changes in our lives little by little.  Even Saint Francis of Assisi, a great saint, who ended up living in extreme poverty, gave away everything he had in incremental steps.  

Everyday we are to die little deaths to ourselves so we can live to our neighbor.  God calls us to give of ourselves at every instant; we are to love our neighbor at all times, both in moments which seem crucial and pivotal as well as in those which seem trivial.  

Earlier this week I received another good example of this way to live of treasuring every chance to give away what we have to our neighbor.  Once again I spoke with a particular homeless woman, who I've previously called "Roslyn" here.  Yet again I learned about how often she offers what she has to people who need it.  She has little, yet she consents to God that she may be even further lessened.  She consents to God that she may become less so that she may become more.  She lets herself be given to others, so that her heart may expand in love for others.  

We can give ourselves away to others in every moment.  With every little act we perform, we can give more and more and more of ourselves away to others.  At every instant, we can come to die more and more to ourselves and live more and more to our neighbor.  

Saint Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower, told us that her little way of getting to Heaven was through performing little acts of love for those around her.  When she was irritated by another nun who made noise handling her rosary while praying, Therese offered up her irritability with this other nun in prayer to Jesus.  Confronted with the little frustrations in life, which may appear to be meaningless to us, we can affect the atmosphere of the world in how we choose to respond to such seemingly unimportant matters.  

In the little decisions we make about how we react to the people around us, we consent to God shaping the world through our choices.  And so, conscious of how we can choose to embrace the will of God at every moment in our lives, we can take courage in our small actions.  We can find encouragement in the little windows of opportunity to love in our lives.  If we make ourselves little enough so that we gladly fit through these windows of seemingly inconsequential opportunities to love, God will work wonders through us.  

As we assent to being humbled by God little by little, God gives us the grace to do His will.  God empowers us to love our neighbor.  God enables us to do what would be impossible without Him.  God helps the little to become great.  God exalts those who allow themselves to be humbled.****  God raises up those who bow down to Him.  God brings those into His Kingdom who live in love.  Let us live in love at every moment, through acts both large and small, and constantly be entering into the Kingdom of God.  

* Mark 10:17-27 
** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6 
*** Philippians 3:8 
**** Matthew 23:12; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14