Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:1, 4:14)

On the surface, Jesus’s parable sounds like a lesson in good etiquette. It’s good advice to win the esteem of others. But the commentators point out there’s more to it than that. This is really about the banquet in heaven. It’s God’s way. We see this throughout scripture and the lives of the saints.

For example, Moses was the one prophet who God spoke with face-to-face because he was the meekest of all the men on the face of the earth.

Our Lady was a handmaid (the lowest of servants who respond to hand motions). She was the handmaid of the Lord, yet all generations to come would call her blessed. 

St. Joseph stayed in the background and was so quiet, we know almost nothing about him. Yet, he is the greatest of saints after Our Lady.

Philippians 2 includes an early church hymn about the humility of Jesus:

Though he was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at (as did Eve).

Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men.

He was known to be of human estate, and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross.

Because of this, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every other name.

St. Therese, the little flower, illustrates this principle beautifully. She looked at the great saints who did many great things and she said, I want to be a great saint, but I’m just a little girl, I can’t climb the mountain like they did. So, she looked for a little way and Jesus showed her the way of spiritual childhood. She said anyone can follow this way provided they are willing to remain very small, unnoticed, not important, a child in the hands of Jesus. That’s what she did. She humbled herself and God exalted her.

She died in 1897, her autobiography, The Story of a Soul was published 1 year later in 1898. Between 1899 and 1902, letters started coming to the Carmel reporting miracles and prayers answered. By 1914, the convent was receiving 200 letters a day either telling of favors or asking for prayer. She was beatified in 1923 and by that time, the convent was receiving between 800 and 1,000 letter a day.

One thing that can block us from humbling ourselves like this is envy. Envy is sadness at another’s blessing and it’s precisely what we may feel when we see someone else being honored because there can be a little something inside us that says, why can’t that be me?

I’m going to give 3 practical reflections on envy.

First, is how beautiful is the opposite. The opposite of envy is to rejoice at another’s blessing, and there was 1 time in particular when I experienced this in a big way. I was at a conference on Unbound prayer. There were 200 to 300 people at the conference and during the conference, some people were able to go through a prayer session. At the end of the conference, the emcee asked if anyone wanted to share their experience. One young man, I think he was a college student, got up and shared how he was struggling with fear. He said at the end of his prayer session, a lady who was part of the prayer team said she saw a vision of him fighting with a Star Wars light saber, slaying a dragon. Well, when he was a boy, he and his brother used to play fight with Star Wars light sabers and the fact that she had that vision made him feel like he could slay his fear, and the whole place just jumped up to their feet clapping their hands and rejoicing over his experience. I was blown away. They didn’t know this guy from Adam and yet they were totally excited for him and the blessing he received. It was tremendously inspirational. It was just so good and so beautiful to witness.  

Second, it’s humility that enables us to receive blessings and do good with them. Many of you have heard of Scott Hahn. He’s an outstanding Catholic Scripture Scholar. I heard him once describe how when he was very young and new to Christianity, a group of friends told him about a prayer group that would pray over people and many of them were receiving the gift of tongues, and would he like to come. He said sure, he would like that gift. He went, was prayed over; but did not get the gift of tongues. But a little after he noticed he had an insatiable desire to understand scripture. He went on to become possibly the most influential Catholic Bible scholar, at least with protestants, in our time. His talk on his conversion story is the #1 selling Catholic CD ever with millions of copies sold. Imagine if instead of going with the gift he was given, he was upset that he didn’t receive the gift of tongues like his friends did and which he wanted. Humility enables us to receive the gifts we’ve been given and not envy the gifts of others.

Humility also enables us to acknowledge the gifts we do have and use them for good. I heard a priest tell this story about Mickey Mantle who was a superstar baseball player for the NY Yankees in the 1950’s and 60’s. One time when he was at the ballpark warming up for a game, a reporter asked him how was it that he was able to get pumped up for every game. He said because somewhere out there is a 10-year-old kid who has come here for the first time to watch me play. Now, we might think, what a cocky, conceited guy, but the truth is, he’s right. He had a tremendous gift. It inspired him; he did his best for a kid that he knew was out there, but he didn’t know. That’s humility – recognizing and acknowledging our gifts and using them for others.

Third, we all have been given gifts. Every person here has gifts, and the gifts vary, not only different kinds but different degrees as well. And I think there is a temptation for us to think we have to be the best; we have to be #1. If we’re not number 1, we’re no good. I remember listening to a presentation at work on the need to be #1 and the guy used the image of a dog race and he said, if you’re not #1, the view’s the same. So that can be our mindset. We have to be #1. First of all, that’s not possible; we can’t all be #1. More importantly, it’s not God’s way. All He wants is for us to use the gifts we’ve been given as best we can for others. That’s it. It doesn’t matter whether we have tremendous abilities and can influence millions of people, or have more limited abilities and our circle is small. All that matters is what we do with what we have. Going back to St. Therese; she saw herself as a little girl, a little flower, and she had her limits. Even after being in the convent for several years, almost every single time the community would pray the rosary, she fell asleep. But she didn’t beat herself up like we would. She loved Jesus as best she could.

So, brothers and sisters let us walk humbly with our God recognizing that ultimately all gifts are from Him. Let us accept the gifts that we’ve been given, great or small, and use them to the best of our ability for others. God bless you!