Homily for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Back in the early ’90’s Bette Midler recorded a hit song entitled “From a Distance.” It had a distinctive religious theme, which was a bit surprising, considering her bawdy persona and her mostly off-color humor. But it demonstrated that spiritualities, images of God, and religious experience can vary widely from person to person. The image of God in this song is somewhat limited and problematic, for while the singer reminds us that “God is watching us,” she seems content to keep God at a distance, hoping, perhaps, that from His distant vantage point He doesn’t necessarily see everything.

This portrays the transcendent image of God in Judaism and Islam, but for Christianity the Lord’s Incarnation changed all that. Now, the distant, transcendent God of the Heavens becomes the imminent Jesus of Nazareth, of whom Saint Augustine would write, “O Lord, you are closer to us than we are to ourselves.” In keeping God watching “from a distance,” the contemporary mode of thought for spiritual lightweights comes forward as the now-common phrase, “Well, I’m spiritual, but not religious,” which is like saying “I’m poetic, but I don’t write… I’m artistic, but I don’t paint… or… I’m musical, but only sing in the shower.” There’s an emptiness in the self-description that’s based in a lack of self-knowledge, an absence of truth, and a shortage of humility, which is the Queen of all Virtues and the prime subject of today’s Readings.

Christian humility is, above all, an attitude of the soul, turned not to our fellow-man nor toward ourselves, but toward God. It is the opposite of self-absorption which would dismiss religion. The concept of religion comes from the Latin roots of the word, combining re meaning again, and ligio, meaning to connect. Religion re-connects us with the soul’s attitude, the soul’s desire for nearness with God, much as the poet is connected to his verse, the artist to his drawings, or the musician to his music. The practice of religion re-connects us with God from whom we sometimes separate ourselves through our sin or indifference… the very God whose visible image of humility is the Incarnate Christ.

Humility, whose definition is also based in the word’s Latin root word: humus, which means ground or soil, means being grounded in truth: the truth of who God is as God reveals Himself, and the truth of who I am in relation to God. It allows a profound self-knowledge of both our weaknesses and our strengths… of our sinfulness and our holiness…  of our individualism and our membership in the Mystical Body of Christ. It leads to Wisdom, which conquers pride and judgmentalism, and eventually yields Charity, which Saint Paul describes as the greatest of the Theological Virtues. This graced combination of humility and charity leads us, further, to recognize the dignity of every human person: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, of whom Our Lord speaks in today’s Gospel. If we tend to keep God at a distance, it’s likely that we’ll do the same to these people, disallowing alms to atone for sins.

True humility is always accompanied by greatness of heart and confidence in the Lord. Self-knowledge leads to self-giving, so humility and charity are always linked. If our humility is genuine, God will recognize it, He will be pleased with it, and reward it, as Our Blessed Mother proclaims in her Magnificat: “He has mercy on those who fear Him… Has has scattered the proud in their conceit… He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly… He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty, for He has remembered His promise of mercy…”

Obtaining humility liberates us from the image of ourselves we like to project, and allows us to be at peace within the interior life, as well as when among other people. Our sense of self-worth becomes less dependent upon what others think of us, and more dependent upon the person God knows us to be. Listen again to what the Author of The Letter to the Hebrews writes about our self-worth: “You have approached Mount Zion, the city of the living God… countless angels in festal gathering… the assembly of the first-born enrolled heaven… the spirits of the Just made perfect… God, the judge of all… and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.” Not bad company!

Humility as a Virtue is not about binding us in a sense of unworthiness; it is about liberating us for a life of truth and holiness, a life of compassion and peace. The Wise Man Sirach, in today’s First Reading, says this: “Conduct your affairs with humility and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I rather like “givers of gifts.” This is, of course, human favor, a good thing in itself, but not the proper motivation for humility. Sirach goes on to say, “Humble yourselves the more, and you will find favor with God.” This is the end, and the fulfillment of humility: “favor” with the God who knows us yet still loves us. True humility does not want God to watch over us “from a distance,” but seeks the immanence and closeness of God whom the soul no longer fears, but seeks in truth, in love, and in hope.