Sitting with the Sacred

This week’s readings:

1. Ezekiel 18:25–28 
2. Psalm 25:4–5, 6–7, 8–9
3. Philippians 2:1–11
4. Matthew 21:28–32

What this week’s readings say to me:

The third reading says the following:

. . . humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.

Philippians 2:3

I think this clause ties together this week’s readings. It takes humility to trust and to be in harmony with others and God and to be at peace when situations don’t go the way I want them to. So far, I’m sorry to say, I don’t seem to have given the virtue of humility the upper hand in my life.

The first reading tells me that if I did, I wouldn’t complain to God that what happens to me is unfair. My vision doesn’t have the expanse that God’s vision does, so who am I to make a judgment about what someone else deserves and what I deserve. When I cooperate with God, God lives in me and works through me. When I don’t, the Holy Spirit has to carve an alternate path within and around me. And even when I cooperate, I do so only with the help of the Holy Spirit. I wouldn’t be alive without the Spirit, and so I don’t deserve anything.

I don’t say this to be negative and self-effacing. Another way to frame this sentiment would be to say that there is nothing that I alone am entitled to. I have dignity because I live, and I live because of God. So does every other living thing. Every living thing lives because God’s nature is relationship, and relationship requires more than one. That’s why I’m thinking that I don’t deserve anything. I may or may not be prevented from receiving something good by one factor or another. Sometimes that factor is me; sometimes it isn’t, and my perception of what would be good for me is often distorted and is always limited. Given this distortion and limitation, how can I say what I or anyone else deserves?

One part of the Good News is that God doesn’t operate in terms of what’s deserved. I didn’t need to deserve to live before I came into being. And if I humble myself, God doesn’t let any negative consequences that may spring from my actions or anyone else’s to destroy me. Instead, if I ask Him and accept the crosses that will come with the answer, He’ll show me how to turn unpleasant or even painful consequences into something positive — in other words — in other words something that cooperates with His will, Hs work. As the psalm puts it, He guides the humble to justice / and teaches the humble his way (Psalm 25:9).

Another part of the Good News is that, while God wants us to know that making room for Him in our lives means humbling ourselves, he doesn’t ask us to do it alone. He does it with us. As Philippians tells me:

Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.

2:6-11

The Gospel reading offers a lesson in contrasts to teach me how to live with an attitude of humility. It teaches me that to live with an attitude of humility means to understand that no group I belong to and nothing about my past determines whether God works in my life and whether that life reflects God. It’s humility that makes room for God in my life. So if I keep returning to humility, eventually when death puts its fingers on me, its grip won’t be able to contain the truth and power of who I am in God. For me, this image of the fingers and the grip unable to stay closed is one way of thinking about eternal life. I saw a quote on the Hallow app today that gave me another way of thinking about eternal life. The quote advises me to:

Begin now to be what you will be hereafter.

St. Jerome.

Lord, help me to remember that intentions and plans mean nothing and do nothing if they aren’t put into action — and not just in the future but now. After all, though I can’t understand how, for You, everything is happening now. Help me to live in union with You and Your other children, not just some time today but at this moment and in the next. Amen.

Works cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 1 October 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.182, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 21 Sep. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

St. Jerome. “Begin now to be what you will be hereafter.” 30 Sep. 2023, https://hallow.com/daily-quote/2023-09-30/.