Humility is the only way into heaven

Our opinion of ourselves and how important we are will affect where we choose to sit, and where we want others to sit.

Dorothy Day

Was talking with a beggar and a bishop came in and asked to talk with her, she responded, “Which one?”

“As a convert, I never expected much of bishops,” said Dorothy Day, at the age of 70. She’d been dealing with them up close for over four decades. “In all history, popes and bishops and father abbots seem to have been blind and power-loving and greedy. I never expected leadership from them. It is the saints that keep appearing all through history who keep things going. What I do expect is the bread of life and down through the ages there is that continuity.”

“Of course the church is corrupt!” Day wrote in her diaries. “‘But this corruption must put on incorruption,’ St. Paul says…I read the lives of the saints, and knew that the renewal they brought — over and over, the St. Benedicts, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Isaac Jogues, etc., etc., etc. — was not just a thing of the past but was going on, over and over.”

Charles De Foucauld - My vocation is downward

“I think it’s my vocation” Charles writes “to go downward”. “For me, I always seek the lowest of the low places, so as to be as little as my master, to be with Him, to walk behind Him, step by step, as a faithful servant.”

“Jesus himself took the lowest place – beginning his life in a manager and ending his life between two thieves on a cross. His whole life long Jesus did nothing other than go down …becoming poor, forsaken, exiled, persecuted, tortured, placing Himself always at the lowest place.” - https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/the-spirituality-of-charles-de-foucauld/ - A Sermon preached at Bread for the World on 27 May 2020 by the Revd Catherine Duce

Nazareth was way out of the way, in the North, close to Samaria. Christ is not asking us to do what He Himself is not willing to do.

James 2:1-5

James 2:1–5 (NABRE)

My brothers, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if a man with gold rings on his fingers and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here, please,” while you say to the poor one, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs? Listen, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?

A few weeks ago we talked about taking care of the poor. Its about thinking of others as more important than yourself. Humility is recognizing the truth of a thing.

The truth is we are beggars before God. This was in the introit of the Mass: Inclina, Dómine, auram tuam mihi, et exaudi me: quoniam inops, et pauper ego sum.

The truth is, we’re sinners. Do we deserve God’s forgiveness? No. Without Christ, we were going to Hell. Since Christ came, he desires to give us his mercy. Who loves more? the person who has been forgiven much or little? The more God has forgiven you, the more you love. The more you love, in truth, in humility, the more you and the world heal.

Mother Teresa stories have been popping up this week

Mother Teresa went to a bakery for bread for her orphan children. When she asked the baker for bread, she extended her hand. The baker spit in her palm. Withdrawing her hand, Mother Teresa told him, “I will keep this for me, but give me some bread for my children,” and held out her other hand. Ashamed, not only did the baker give her what she wanted, but he became a main bread supplier for the orphanage.

Who wants to care for lepers?! Nobody! Why would she have done it!? Because its fun? no, because its Christ.

He shared in his homily today a story of a Dominican priest in a white habit. He was resting after giving a talk to the sisters and smelled something terrible. A man was dying right outside his window. So he closed the window. Then he heard Mother Teresa going outside to care for the maggoted man and holding the man to herself as she and another sister carried him inside. She said, “My Jesus, My Jesus!” The priest wept.

Fr. Walter Ciszek

Humility is nothing more or less than knowing our place before God. Christ’s whole life, from birth to death was a perfect act of humility that flowed from his total submission to the will of the Father. It reached its crest on the cross where he died humiliated and deprived of everything. Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

We’re not rich, but we’re pretty well off, good friends and happiness are ours. We don’t have to be rich to be enamored by the things of this world. It doesn’t take much to have a sense of comfort and we trust in our things and take God for granted. God has to break through this routine to remind us that we are totally dependent upon Him…

The saints live this humility. Oh God, Help me to trust in You!!!

ut possítis comprehéndere cum ómnibus sanctis

The Litany of Humility

I’m just a man, but with you, I want to be a saint. Pray the litany of humility today and throughout this week. Do it in Latin if you want, but do it and notice which ones prick you…

From the desire of being praised,

Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others,

Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated,

Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected,

Deliver me, O Jesus.

That others may be chosen and I set aside,

Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

Jesus, help me to practice sitting in the low seat. Its easy for me to get honors as a priest. Jesus help me to see you like Mother Teresa saw you. Jesus, help me to see. Lord grant me the grace of humility, this humility that Our Mother, Our Lady had, for she was more beautiful to you in her humility than even in her purity, for it was her humility that made her your most faithful disciple.