the Power of humility

Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Mt 11:25-27

We live in a world where many people want to be the best, want to achieve the highest, and desire to be the most intelligent before others. Heard from parents

In one class in my seminary, my professor asked us a question: Who is the most intelligent or smartest person in the community? We came up with many answers, like the guy who reads a lot of books or knows a lot. Finally, the professor answered, "It is the one who is the humblest as a child."

In the Gospel, the wise and the learned are arrogant scribes or Pharisees who consider themselves righteous and have much knowledge. They are like closed vessels, which cannot be poured into them.

But who is the little one or the childlike? In Jesus' time, they were the lowly people, like slaves, widows, orphans, and the sick, abandoned by society. The little ones often have a simple and humble attitude, knowing they are limited, broken, and dependent; they always open their hearts to listen to God's words like a dry land waiting for rain.

The history of the Church is a testament to God's favor for the humble. While the world may value the learned and the great, God's heart is with the little ones, the childlike, the humble. He chooses them to do great works, showing that true greatness lies in humility.

The most outstanding example is Jesus Christ, who is the wisest and the greatest, and God himself but who identified himself as a little one before the Father and even before humanity. Jesus took a lowly human form to share our human lowliness so we may share his divine greatness. That is the whole point of our Christian life: God comes down from on high to become like us and make us like him.

Jesus continues to identify himself as the little one among us at this very altar by giving us his Body and Blood every time we celebrate Mass. The Eucharist, a central sacrament in our faith, is a profound demonstration of God's humility and love for us. Whenever the Mass is celebrated, Jesus comes down from heaven to be the little one, in the form of the Eucharist, so that we may share the heavenly greatness. It seems that the tiny and smallest piece of the bread is nothing but it everything.

Let us heed the call to be the 'little one,' the 'childlike' who humbly recognizes limitations and brokenness before God. Let us become small like Jesus so that God may lift us up. In this humility, God's power can work in us, transforming us and making us more like Him.

Our reflecting question for today is, am I the wise, the learned, or the childlike before God?