The theme of humility is prominent in today’s readings and spelled out in the book of Sirach. The gospel of Luke tells us how we are to behave and act in a humble way. The second reading speaks of the city of the living God, a place for the humble of heart and the wise. Our Anishnabe ancestral teaching includes ‘humility’ and ‘wisdom’, very much in line with our Christian Catholic teachings.
What is humility? Google says the word itself comes from the word ‘humus’ meaning ‘of the earth’, meaning being grounded. Another explanation I’ve heard of what humility is, is that ‘humility is truth’. Truth is reality and the earth is real. The reality is, we are people of the earth and we often forget who we are, so far removed from the mother earth. This results in us being abusive of her, our mother, by our lifestyle. We get caught up by the materialistic society we live in and become a garbage-creating, throw away people. Humility encourages us to recognize the truth and acknowledge who we really are as individuals and as people. With humility we realize our lowliness, so as to be more temperate and modest, knowing our need and dependence on God. In Sirach, God is glorified by the humble. When we don’t acknowledge who we are, we get lost, forgetting our need for God, thinking we can do everything on our own, trying to become our own little gods to have life revolve around ourselves.
Being humble is knowing the truth, knowing who we are (self knowledge and self acceptance), including our brokenness, and not pretending or trying to be someone we are not.
In the gospel, Jesus tells us not to promote ourselves to the highest place when invited to a dinner but to take a lower place. This is the practice of humility, taking the spotlight away from ourselves so that it shines on those around us. Our traditional ancestral teachings talk about respect, courage, truth and honesty, which are actions to be practiced, and the fruit or byproduct of these is humility, wisdom and love. We have rich cultural and traditional teachings that support our other rich Christian Catholic teachings, both of which, if practiced, will bring us a wholistic health spiritually, mentally/emotionally, and physically.
Jesus is our Way, the Truth and the Life.
– Sr. Terry Beaudry
