Qua bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, chúng ta hãy tự hỏi: Đã có bao giờ chúng ta đã từng nghĩ tới và đặt ra câu hỏi là: chúng ta là hạng người như thế nào? Có bao giờ chúng ta đã từng tự tôn mình lên trên người khác? Hay có bao giờ chúng ta đã thực sự quan tâm đến tới những người khác một cách chân tình, nghĩa là sẽ làm những gì mà chúng ta có thể làm để giúp người khác bất cứ khi nào chúng ta có thể làm được để đem được hạnh phúc đến cho họ?
Trong Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu nói rằng những ai muốn làm người đứng đầu, thì phải là người đứng sau, đứng cuối cùng của tất cả và là tôi tớ của tất cả mọi người. Có phải đó là ý của Chúa Giêsu muốn nói rằng đấy là cách để chúng ta đạt được tham vọng của chúng ta là phải được phục vụ? Không phải thế, thật ra, Chúa Giêsu không hề quan tâm đến việc chúng ta có đạt được tham vọng hay không! Nhưng Ngài muốn nói với chúng ta là phải làm như thế nào để được đứng đầu hay đến trước hết ngay trong trái Tim của Ngài, và ngay cả trong tâm hồn của người khác. Nếu chúng ta muốn là người đứng đầu trong trái Tim của Chúa Kitô, chúng ta phải là người tôi tớ của mọi người. Hơn nữa, nếu chúng ta có sự khiêm tốn để phục vụ người khác, chúng ta sẽ dễ dàng nhận ra được rằng: chúng ta cũng sẽ có một vị trí đặc biệt trong trái Tim của những người khác.
Có lẽ chúng ta thường chỉ quan tâm đến những sự ước muốn và nhu cầu riêng của chúng ta hơn, Nhưng Chúa Giêsu muốn biến đổi tâm hồn chúng ta, để chúng ta cũng có thể trở thành người biết lo lắng, biết nghĩ đến người khác, và biết quan tâm, phục vụ người khác.
Ngày hôm nay, chúng ta hãy xin Chúa Giêsu giúp chúng ta biết tập trung nhiều hơn vào những gì thực sự quan trọng, đó là sự quan tâm đối với những người khác, sự yêu thương những người khác hơn là sự tập trung vào những thứ hư vô, hay là chỉ biết làm việc và phục vụ riêng cho chính mình.
Reflection Saturday 30th Ordinary Time
Have we ever given any though on what kind of people we are? Do we promote ourselves? Or do we do show sincere concern for others, doing what we can, whenever we can, to help others in order to make them happy? In today's Gospel, Jesus said that those who want to be first must be the last of all and the servants of all. Is Jesus saying that the way to achieve our ambitions is to serve? Not at all. Jesus is not concerned with us achieving our ambitions. He is telling us how to be first in his heart, and even in the hearts of others. If we want to be first in Christ's heart, we must be a servant of all. Moreover, if we have the humility to serve others, we will realize that we also have a special place in other people's hearts.
Perhaps we are often concerned only with our own wants and needs. But Jesus wants to transform us, so that we too can become caring people, concerned with serving others. Let us ask Jesus today to help us be more focused on what really matter — concern for others, loving others, rather than focusing on empty, self-serving actions.
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.” Luke 14:8–9
This is an interesting parable. First of all, it must be noted that a true saint would not be embarrassed by such a humiliation. Instead, they would happily give their seat of honor to another. In fact, they would most likely have immediately taken the “lowest” spot, since this form of worldly honor would mean nothing to them. But Jesus wasn’t speaking at this time to living saints. He was speaking to people who did struggle with desires for worldly esteem. This shows that the people to whom Jesus was speaking were also insecure and lacked healthy self-esteem.
What’s beautiful is that Jesus meets these people where they are at, telling them a parable to which they could relate. These were the guests who were present at a dinner being held by one of the leading Pharisees to which Jesus was also invited. Jesus’ point was to gently share with them the truth that humility was far better than pride. True exultation and honor is found by humbling oneself and elevating others as a way of pointing to their innate dignity and value as persons. This is a hard lesson to learn.
Most people, when in a group of people, will struggle with comparing themselves to others. “She’s prettier” or “He’s more successful” or “They are very educated,” etc. This common tendency often comes as a result of being personally insecure with who you are as a person. However, if you were able to completely be at peace with who you are, if you loved yourself in the way God loves you, then you would be much freer to love others, see their dignity, and even rejoice in the ways that they are successful and exalted.
Jesus concludes His parable by saying, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” To the normal secular mind, this can be a hard truth to grasp. It can be difficult to understand the great value of humility. But humility is simply seeing yourself in the light of truth, in the way God sees you. The humble person does not need the praise and esteem of others. God’s love for them is sufficient. For that reason, humble people not only love themselves as God loves them, but they are then free to turn their full attention to the good of others. This is pure love. And this love is only possible when humility is lived fully.
Reflect, today, upon this gentle teaching of Jesus, given to those who greatly lacked humility. Try to see Jesus’ concern for them and His desire not to embarrass them but to free them from the heavy burden of their insecurities. If you are one who struggles with this, reflect upon our Lord gently inviting you to embrace humility. Pray for this virtue and practice it with sincerity. Know that the attainment of this virtue will open the door to much freedom in your life.
My humble Lord, You knew Yourself with perfection and loved Your own sacred soul with the same love the Father in Heaven had for You. Please help me to discover who I am. Help me to see myself as You see me. May I never be burdened by the distorted desire for earthly honors and worldly esteem. Instead, I pray that this glorious gift of humility will live deeply in my soul. Jesus, I trust in You.
Encountering Christ:
The Vanity Trap: How much time we waste by worrying what other people are thinking of us! Just like the guests at this dinner, we jostle and vie for approval, recognition, and popularity. Our Lord’s parable points out how such expenditure of energy is pointless—we simply cannot control the whims of others, the ebbs and flows of societal fashions. Something completely outside of our control could easily push us to the lowest seat at the table at any time. Jesus wants us to release these vain strivings. He wants us to direct our energy and our hopes to more worthy goals. Instead of trying to exalt ourselves, he encourages us to humble ourselves. This doesn’t mean thinking less of ourselves—we are still created in God’s image and redeemed by Christ, so our true value and worth are not in question. Rather, he wants us to think about ourselves less, to occupy our minds with other things, to be freed from vain self-absorption, which is a dead-end when it comes to spiritual growth and interior peace. This parable echoes one of Christ’s unforgettable exhortations in his Sermon on the Mount: But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you besides (Matthew 6:33).
The Good Roots of Bad Vanity: The sin of vanity, as all sin, involves the distortion of something good—in this case, something actually necessary. The human person needs to be loved, approved, valued, esteemed. We cannot flourish unless we know that we are valued just because of who we are. This need is built into our nature. The yearning to be valued and appreciated is a healthy yearning. After all, we are created in the image of God, who is a Trinity of Persons in an eternal exchange of love. To try and stifle the yearning for love would be to stifle our very humanity. The problem isn’t in the desire for appreciation, but in misplacing that desire. Our fallen nature is so insecure that we have a tendency to turn the desire to be valued into an idol as if being valued is the true goal of life instead of a necessary ingredient. When we do that, we can easily end up committing all kinds of evil acts just in order to remain in a particular person’s good graces. We will lie and gossip to get on someone’s good side. We will overextend ourselves to win someone’s approval. We may even subject our bodies to immoral activities just so we won’t be rejected by someone we are trying to impress or hold on to. In a desperate bid to be seen and valued by someone we care about, we can break every commandment. This is disordered. Jesus wants us to know that we never have to compromise our true identity as God’s children; we never have to disdain our innate human dignity to make ourselves loved, valued, and appreciated. This is because we already are loved, valued, and appreciated, infinitely, by God. Our faith tells us this. And so, the true path to interior peace and spiritual strength isn’t trying to win the approval of peers or bosses at any cost, but taking the time to exercise and nourish our faith, so that we see ourselves more and more constantly through God’s eyes.
An Odd Place for God: St. Luke presents us with an odd scene in today’s Gospel. A leading Pharisee is hosting a large social gathering—think of a catered cocktail and dinner party in a wealthy socialite’s mansion. And Jesus is there. And he engages in a series of interactions and conversations during this party in which he takes advantage of the circumstances to preach the Gospel, to reveal the eternal truths. Most of us wouldn’t consider this setting a typical place for God to reveal himself. And yet, there it is, right in St. Luke’s Gospel. Is it possible that Jesus is revealing himself to me, teaching me the lessons I most need to learn, in the middle of the normal scenes of my everyday life? Of course, it is! That’s how God works. As the Catechism reminds us (27): God never ceases to draw man to himself. God is reaching out to me always and everywhere: at home, at work, at dinner parties, on the golf course. The question is, am I looking for him there, or am I so preoccupied with my own equivalent of choosing the places of honor at the table that I simply can’t hear his voice?
Conversing with Christ: What do I really want, Lord? I say that I want you to have the first place in my heart, that I want to know and embrace your will, that I want your friendship to be the fulcrum of everything I am and everything I do. Yet, I don’t always think, speak, and act as if that were truly the case. Why not? I suspect other desires or fears are at work deep within me, desires and fears I may not even be fully aware of. Please reveal them to me, Lord, as painful as it may be. I don’t want anything to interfere with my following of you.
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will make a calm and honest examination of conscience and go to confession, so as to give room for your grace to cleanse and renew me.
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