Posts Tagged ‘Matthew 23:1-12’
Genuine Humility – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Many years ago, my confessor gave me a tough homework assignment. My assignment was to get over myself. To get over myself and pray with the last line from our Gospel passage tonight, where Jesus tells us, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
My homework assignment came after I had spent a long time waxing poetically with my confessor about my sins, my shortcomings, all the mistakes I had made in the past, and so on. My confessor looked me in the eye and asked if I thought that God wanted me to think about myself as much as I did, especially my past. I must admit I was tongue tied in my response.
I’ve always been grateful for that homework assignment because it led to years of me praying about humility. What I’ve come to learn in my time as a monk and in especially with getting to meet so many people here, is that genuine humility is not what I thought it was. Read More
Self-effacing Leaders – Br. David Vryhof
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Br. David Vryhof
Preachers love to repeat the gentle words of Jesus that assure us of God’s love and faithfulness. It’s not as easy to listen to his critical words, especially when they are directed at religious leaders.
In our gospel reading tonight, Jesus denounces the Scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day. The criticism can be understood on three levels. First, the gospels reflect the real conflicts that Jesus had with religious leaders in his own day, many of whom were not Pharisees. Second, they also reflect the real conflict that the early Church had with Jewish authorities. When Matthew wrote his gospel towards the end of the first century and following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the Pharisees had risen in power and often were in conflict with early Christians. Third, this portion of Matthew’s Gospel is also aimed at early Church leaders, lest they fall into the same traps the Scribes and Pharisees did.[i]
What is it that Jesus is criticizing here? Read More
Humility, Allowing Our Hearts to Soar – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
A little more than twenty years ago Philip Simmons died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: ALS – or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was a young professor of English at a Chicago college, married, the father of two children. At the same time Philip Simmons was dying from the cruel ravages of ALS, he was more alive than he had ever been. [i]
He writes about learning to fall. He speaks of falling, quite literally, because of the ALS; he also writes about falling as a figure of speech. We fall on our faces, we fall for a joke, we fall for someone, we fall in love. He asks, in each of these falls, what do we fall away from? We fall from ego, we fall from our carefully-constructed identities, we fall from our reputations, from our precious selves. We fall from ambition, we fall from grasping to control… And what do we fall into? We fall into passion and compassion, into terror, into unreasoning joy. We fall into emptiness; we fall into oneness with others whom we realize are likewise falling. Ultimately it’s a falling into grace, falling into the real presence of God.[ii] The name for this falling, the gateway into this mysterious presence of God, is humility.
In our Gospel lesson appointed for today, we hear Jesus speak of humility: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The English word “humility” comes from the Latin humilis: “lowly,” or “near the ground.” Humility is the opposite of feeling oneself to be high and lofty, above and beyond all the people whom we find inadequate. The English words “humility” and “humus” are cousins, “humus” being the organic component of soil. Humus is what makes soil rich. The autumnal leaves falling from the trees compost into humus, which is essential to life. Read More