Seek humility, boast in the Lord and you
will be blesséd.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Beatitude is the calling, the vocation of
our Christian life. Yet so often
blessedness, happiness, seems to elude
us; it falls from our grasp. The more we
try to secure our happiness, take hold of
it, the more we find it escapes us. How
often happiness seems to be within arms
reach and then something happens, a
crisis: we are not appreciated, we are
ridiculed, we live in ‘should’ land – I
should have done better, this should have
happened – we lose our job, worst of all,
we lose a loved one. In a word, we are in
dire straights. The only thing we can
apparently hold on to is the sorrow and
pain, the grief and distress. There is no
way out!
But is that true? Listen to your heart.
What do you hear? A heartbeat, our
hearts beat for beatitude. God, our
Father, has placed the desire for
happiness in our hearts. That’s why
Jesus spurs us on to victory with these
words: seek humility, boast in the Lord
and you will be blesséd. Seek humility,
boast in the Lord and you will be happy.
As every journey begins by setting out
for a goal and seeking something, the
journey of a Christian towards beatitude
begins by seeking humility.
From the moment of our baptism, we set
out as seekers of humility. And I can
honestly say I have never thought about
this before: the link between our baptism
and being seekers of humility. And I
wonder, how many of us have really
thought about this, how many of us have
considered that from the day of our
baptism we set out as seekers of
humility. I won’t ask you to put up your
hand. I would much rather prefer if we
could ponder on this together: the link
between our baptism and being seekers
of humility. (Pause)
Through baptism, our heart was united to
the beating heart of Christ. Through
baptism, we entered into communion
with Christ’s death and resurrection. In
Jesus Christ, God humbled himself, even
to the point of dying on the Cross, but he
was exalted by the glory of the Father;
he rose from the dead. Through baptism
we entered into Christ’s heartbeat, into
his movement of dying and rising, of
humbling ourselves and being exalted. In
a word, baptism made us seekers of
humility. Therefore, to run away from
humility is to run away from our
baptism, to run away from the union of
our heart with Christ’s heart. And this
has profound consequences: to run away
from humility, to run away from the
union of our heart with Christ’s heart.
If the humble are those who do no wrong
and utter no lies, as we heard in the first
reading, than what shall become of us if
we run away from humility? We will do
wrong, we will become liars! Our hearts
will become corrupt. What is at stake
here is our humanity. When we run from
humility, from the union of our heart
with Christ’s heart, we become less and
less human. We become beasts who
devour one another. We see this
everywhere! Look at the newspapers!
Look at the conflict in Ukraine, Look at
the rise in suicide among our peers.
Look at the neglect of the elderly – our
grandparents – the sick, the poor. But
don’t just look, our humanity is at stake.
We must run towards humility, run
towards the union of our heart with
Christ’s heart, enter into Christ’s
heartbeat, into his movement of dying
and rising, of humbling ourselves and
being exalted. ‘But…humility is
painful…besides, it always seems to
have something of the impossible in it.’
And I agree, but that’s why I find Jesus’
words so encouraging. In the Gospel he
answers our fears which keep us running
away; he spurs us on, he encourages us:
Blessed…Happy…are the poor in
spirit…those who mourn…those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness…the
persecuted. Who among us cannot
identify ourselves with such company?
We are all poor in spirit for who among
us really knows how to pray as we
ought? We weep over the evil in the
world, over our sins; but perhaps we do
not weep enough. We hunger and thirst,
deep down, for what is good, true and
beautiful. In the face of hardship,
persecution, we feel our weakness. And
in all this, Jesus embraces us; he loves
our poverty, our weakness and all he
asks is that we accept him, welcome
him, as the source of our life. In this
Eucharist he pleads with us: “Die with
Me, and you will also rise with Me. It is
life not death, joy not sorrow, peace not
pain that has the last word. Trust Me.”
As Christians, this is the secret of our
life, our joy, our peace: the presence of
Jesus. And we encounter his presence
when we run forth to meet him in
humility. ‘But why humility?’ We can’t
quite get rid of that complaint can we?
But Jesus can!
We know well that humility brings us to
the cross but often we forget that on the
cross Jesus runs forth to meet us. In fact,
even before we humble ourselves, Jesus
is on the Cross patiently waiting to meet
us. Jesus is there first. He is a faster
runner than we are. And you know,
when we meet him on the cross,
something extraordinary happens, an
exchange happens: Jesus takes our
poverty, our weakness and in return He
gives us His strength: His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ strength. But
ours too!
Remember St. Paul’s thorn in the flesh?
Three times he begged the Lord to
remove it from him. And how did the
Lord respond? ‘Paul,’ he said, ‘my grace
is sufficient for you, for my power is
made perfect in weakness.’ How
different is the power of God from its
worldly counterpart. Worldly power
crushes; it has no room for weakness; it
thrives on eliminating whatever stands in
its way. But God’s power lifts up; it is
perfected in weakness and thrives on
giving itself away. The power of God is
the power of crucified love; it is a
humble love. It is a love that lifts up,
builds up, heals and gives itself away.
Such is the love we received through
baptism. As seekers of humility, such is
the love we are called to give away. And
so we discover the reason for our boast:
God has chosen us, poor sinners that we
are, to be missionaries of his love.
Let us go forth in prayer: Thank you
Father for calling us to beatitude! Thank
you Jesus for uniting our hearts to your
own! Thank you Holy Spirit for being
our strength along our pilgrim way!
Amen.