Today's Gospel

A Radical Invitation to Humility

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Luke 18:9-14. Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed with himself, saying, "God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get." But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Jesus said, "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." What jumps out at you today? One of the great themes of salvation history is pride. One of the great themes of the gospel is the call to humility. We've talked before any time Jesus uses the same word repeated multiple times in a reading. It always captures my attention in a certain way.

And today, he talks about exalting; people who exalt themselves. And who are the people who exalt themselves? Us, all of us. And we can exalt ourselves in very grotesque ways like the first guy praying here today. But we can also exalt ourselves in very subtle ways. We can exalt ourselves by talking about ourselves in certain ways. We can exalt ourselves by talking about what we do or what we've done or what we've accomplished. We can exalt ourselves by leaving pieces out of the story, only talking about the positive and leaving out the negative. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and he's got a problem with gambling. Well, he used to have a problem with gambling many, many years ago, but he said to me that when he was gambling, he would always talk about his wins, but he would never talk about his losses. And so the people around him thought he was winning all the time when he was gambling when, in reality, it was destroying his life. And so that's a way to like exalt yourself, right? To only talk about your wins and never talk about your losses. We can do it in explicit ways. We can do it in very, very subtle ways. And of course, the gospel is a radical invitation to humility.

And so let's go into the world today, humble hearts, see how God wants to use us for good. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.