Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil

August 27, 2022

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/8.27.22_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday as Jesus, by means of a parable on seats at a dinner gathering, teaches us about the humility necessary to come to the eternal wedding banquet.

* The parable flatly contradicts the way many in the world, including sometimes many of us Christians, behave. 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 acknowledgedas the best, and if we recognize begrudgingly that we’re not the best, we at least want to be better than 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.

* Jesus, however, calls us to a different standard, a higher standard that is at the same time, paradoxically, a lower one. He tell us in this Sunday’s Gospel, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” He who elsewhere in the Gospel told us, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart”(Mt 11:29), whose whole life was a lesson in humility, wants to help us learn from him how to serve rather than to be served, to seek the lowest place rather than the highest, to treasure God’s esteem rather than others’ adulation so that God may say to us, in this world and the next, the words of the host in this Sunday’s Gospel: “My friend, come up higher!” The way to be exalted at Jesus’ right side forever is humbly to serve at Jesus’ side here on earth, and to follow him not just in seeking the lowest places at table but in getting up from the table like he did at the Last Supper, picking up the basin and towel to wash others’ feet, and serving them in such self-effacing ways.

* To become meek and humble of heart like Jesus, especially in a proud and self-exalting age, is obviously easier said than done. We must first know what humility is and then know and choose the means by which we can grow in humility.

* Let’s begin with what humility means. Humility comes from the Latin word, humus, which means ground or dirt. It has various connected spiritual meanings. It means, first, that we have both of our feet on the ground, that we have a deep sense of who we are. As we hear every year on Ash Wednesday, we recognize we’re dust and unto dust we shall ret...