A Letter from Fr. Paul - September 1, 2019

Our Grass Mass (Mass in the courtyard) and luncheon will take place this coming Sunday, September 8, beginning at 10:30. Please attend and invite relatives, friends, and/or neighbors who do not regularly attend church (free tickets will be available for these invited guests). Sometimes all people need is a personal invitation to begin to engage once more with their faith. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach out to them.

Fr. Patric’s mother is back in rehab at Alexian Village and getting stronger. He appreciates your continued prayers.

Br. Silas let an excellent mini-retreat on Mary’s song, The Magnificat. The feedback was very positive. I thank the 57 people who took advantage of this spiritual formation experience.

Our theme this weekend is the virtue of humility. Sirach, promoting virtues for wise living, notes that humility makes one likeable to both God and others.

In the Gospel, Jesus is attending a dinner at someone’s house and gives advice concerning humility, both for the guests and the host. The guest should take the lowest seat and hopefully will be asked to move up (placement at table was extremely important at that time). The host should invite those in need, even though it will “not look good” for him and they can’t pay back: it will look good to God. All of this is summarized in a line we all know well: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Humility was obviously important to Jesus, who, in addition to what we heard above, told us to be as humble as a little child (Matthew 18:4) and to learn from Him, who was meek and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29).

Humility is NOT humiliation; it is not putting oneself down. It is having a realistic understanding of who we are, while recognizing that all we have comes from God. That recognition will help us to be thankful, and a thankful person is inclined to share with others who are not so blessed.

​I invite us to reflect this week on what humility truly is, asking ourselves how we are doing with this all-important virtue.

To help us, I present a number of thought-provoking quotes from various sources:

St. Augustine: Humility makes men angels and pride makes angels devils.

Baron Rothschild: Those that matter won’t mind where they sit and those that do mind don’t matter.

Pat Marrin: There is no such thing as rank because we are loved [by God] for who we are. That makes us equal while preserving uniqueness and diversity: a reflection of God’s creativity.

And in all humility let us support each other in prayer.

-- Paul James Portland, SDS