22nd Sunday - Fr. Leo
Ultimate humility is knowing we are created and loved by God. Humility allows us to live knowing that God wants us to share in God’s divinity. When we are humble in the Spirit, we don’t have to seek places of honor, greatness of reputation, or worldly fame and wealth to feel good about ourselves.
Many things people seek don’t bring happiness but quite the opposite If we seek worldly status it never works. Those who reach it are dismayed and discover a hollow existent of achievements rather than contentment in the gift of life and authentic relationships.
There are people who become very successful in their careers and find financial security and one day wake up asking themselves, ‘Why aren’t I happy.” They realize that their career was chosen to please others or to chase after what they thought was a happy goal. Then they discover their true self and sometimes move in a very different direction in life.
I’ve met people with great jobs who gave it all up to go home to work in the family business and be close to family. Or others whose heath scares have brought them back to their true passion and shifted their lives.
We can all benefit by the practice of humility. If God’s love for us is real in our hearts, we become free. Free to be ourselves in God. Humility helps us let go of our false selves and find our true selves in God. So let us strive after humility and as our first reading says, “conduct our affairs with humility, that we may be loved more than the giver of gifts.”