Tag: family

Homily for the twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (C).

Humility is the virtue that stands out both in today’s Gospel reading and in Sirach’s advice to “conduct your affairs with humility” and to “humble yourself the more, the greater you are.”  I’ve been thinking about humility a lot this summer because I’ve been thinking about my grandfathers.  One passed away in June, the other fourteen years ago, and “humble” is one of the first words that comes to mind when I think of either of them—perhaps in both cases because my grandfathers were the quiet ones, and my grandmothers were the talkers!  One grandfather was a baker, the other lived his whole life in the same small town in Minnesota.  I think of them both as great men not because they sought attention or prestige, but because they didn’t.  Because they dedicated themselves to others, to their families and to their communities, without making a fuss about it, and left the lives of many better as a result.  In the homely etiquette lesson Jesus offers in the Gospel—take the lower place instead of elbowing your way to the head of the table—he points to one way in which a humble act can leave one better off in the long run.