30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of October with the schools having the midterm break for Halloween next week. It is also hard to believe that next Saturday we celebrate the feast of All Saints closely followed by all souls the next day. The readings in our Liturgy for this weekend are all about the HUMBLE person of faith. The readings for this Sunday also remind us that God sees the heart. He listens to those who are humble and cries out for justice. He does not turn away from the poor or the weak. Instead, He cares for those who trust Him. In the First Reading God, who is no respecter of personages who is just and impartial, listens to the cries of the oppressed the poor and the humble, ensuring their prayers are answered and justice is swiftly delivered.
In the second reading Paul speaks about his struggles. He has stayed faithful to his mission even when others abandoned him. He knows that God is with him and will bring him safely into His kingdom. Paul’s words show that faith does not mean life will be easy. He faced many hardships, yet he never gave up. He trusted that God would give him strength. Even when people turned away from him, he knew he was not alone. The Gospel reading teaches that humility is necessary to be with God. Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee stands confidently, thanking God that he is better than others. He lists his good deeds, believing they make him righteous of course they don’t. The tax collector, however, stands at a distance, unwilling to lift his eyes. He simply prays for mercy. Jesus says it is the tax collector who goes home justified. What does the Gospel Reading about the tax collector and the Pharisee say to us today ? Also and more importantly what about the words of the Tax Collector who said in a simple humble way God be merciful to me a sinner what do these humble words say to us? I think that the Tax Collector despised by the people because of the job he does is saying to us that we need to have the humility to be humble before God who knows that we are sinners even before we say it and we also have to be humble with other people dealing with them with real humility.
Real humility is about facing the truth about the truth about ourselves we are and often times we don’t like to hear the truth about ourselves or any situations we might be in. The person who is truly humble will always see pride in him or herself as a bad thing. The person who is humble believes him/herself to have nothing, when in fact he has God, who is all and everything for him! The person who knows how to be dependent on God humbles himself so much, putting himself in his proper place before his Creator, and the Lord lifts him up to his own Glory in order to make him his adopted child. In a word, he who humbles himself, God justifies! The more someone makes himself small in the eyes of god, the more the Lord is pleased to come and live in him and to make him shine with his divine light before other people. In our modern world, Pride which was very strong in the words the Pharisee spoke dominates the world, and it is this pride which often leads many people the world over down a long lonely path. The old saying rings true that pride comes before a fall and we see this in so many places and situations we might find ourselves or perhaps we have seen other people in. Today, We shall approach the altar of the Lord with humble hearts and minds. This approach testifies at once to our humility and to our grandeur. It testifies to our humility, for we humble in believing that what we see as bread is not bread but rather the Body of Christ.
It testifies to our grandeur, for, in communion, we truly become the Body of Christ, adoptive sons and daughters in the only Son of God! May this approach be our justification, for the salvation of the world! I finish with these words from Micah which really sum up the gospel reading for this Sunday and what does the Lord require of us? He requires us To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. So let us go into the world with true humility in our hearts and minds so we are able to serve those who need us most where we are.
Fullerton T 