Fr. Roger J. Landry

Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

August 28, 2022

Sir 3:17-18.20.28-29, Ps 68, Heb 12:18-19.22-24, Lk 14:1.7-14

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/8.28.22_Homily_1.mp3

 

The text that guided today’s homily was: 

* In Jesus’s parable in today’s Gospel, the Lord is doing far more than giving his disciples — those 2000 years ago and us today — advice on how to achieve the best seats at a wedding reception. As valid and applicable as that counsel is for human situations, Jesus’ real point was to teach us how to be exalted at the eternal wedding banquet to which the Host, his Father, has invited “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.” In order for us to hear those words from God the Father, “Friend, move up higher,” which is the deepest longing that exists in the human heart, for definitive happiness and holiness in heaven, Jesus says that there is only one way: we must recognize that we’re poor in need of the Lord’s true riches, crippled in need of the Lord’s help to straight ourselves out, lame desperate for the Lord’s grace to walk by faith, and blind crying out for the light of faith to see things clearly. We must, in short, humble ourselves, for it is only the humble who will be so exalted.

* These are very hard and challenging words in our culture, which so much prizes human exaltation. We see it in the ever-growing number of award shows indulging the egos of those in film, television and music, as they give out awards for best actors, actresses, directors, producers, graphic artists, costume designers, film editors, hairstylists, production designers, sound mixers, screen play writers, you name it. We see it in the honors we give to the students who are “Most Popular” and “Most Likely to Succeed,” to the “Best Looking” women in beauty pageants, to the “Most Successful” sales representatives, to the “Most Valuable Player” in sports leagues, and even to the “best groomed” dogs. So many of us have been raised with the desire not only to be the best, but to be acknowledged as the best, and if we recognize begrudgingly that we’re not the best, we at least want to be betterthan those with whom we come into contact. We want to get our own way, rather than conceding to the wishes of another. We want to get the last word, rather than concede it to someone else. We want to be the ones noticed and thanked, and resent it if others get the credit we think we deserve. In short, we hunger to be noticed, esteemed, and exalted. We want the places of honor at table, first class seats on airplanes and front row seats at concerts. We long for positions of power and influence and titles of status and worldly honor.

* To all of us in this culture, Jesus says to us in the words of today’s Alleluia verse, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Jesus’ whole life is a lesson in humility and he turns to each of us and says, “Follow me!”

* St. Paul described Jesus’ humility best in his letter to the Philippians, grounding our humility on the unbelievable humility of the Son of God: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him...