Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome back. Today's Gospel is from the Gospel of Luke 14:1 and 7-14. One Sabbath, when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. Now, he taught a parable to those who were invited when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, "When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor lest a more eminent man than you be invited and he who invited you will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you're invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, go higher up.' Then you'll be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." So what jumps out at you today? Jesus, he's gone to this dinner at the Pharisee's house, right? Which is interesting unto itself. These people were clearly his enemies. And yet, he's accepted the invitation. He knows they are hunting him. And yet, he accepts the invitation. Why? Well, lots of reasons, I think. Some of them maybe we can begin to understand. Probably many of them we can never even be aware of because that's the mind of God. But firstly, he was interested in saving everyone, right? So he had hope even in these Pharisees who were so obviously against him.

The second, he had nothing to fear. He had nothing to fear because he knew who he was. He knew what he was here for. He was on mission. And so the fears that rise up in us when we think about having dinner with our enemies, those fears didn't rise up in him. That's why he was constantly encouraging us. Don't be afraid. Do not be afraid. Be not afraid, just over and over and over again. Because our fears, these very strong emotions, draw us off course. They draw us off mission. They draw us away from who He is calling us to be. And then Jesus is at the dinner, and now He starts telling a parable about the dinner. Now, I don't know about you, but I've heard this message many times. I have never thrown a dinner party for people who weren't my friends or weren't my family, the poor, the lame, the maimed, the blind. I've never thrown a dinner party for these people. Have my wife and I contributed to things? Yeah, sure. But we never threw a party for these people. I also don't think that that is necessarily what Jesus is saying. And I think it's very important to us that we step back from a literal interpretation of the Scriptures. The strong pull of Protestantism, evangelical Christianity in this country, and very often a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, it can just get in the air, it can just get in the water that we drink. And then we can find ourselves literally interpreting or reading the Scriptures. And we're not fundamentalists. We do not believe in that.

And so Jesus is teaching about a feast, a party. He's at a party. He's at a feast. And so that's the context, right? But, again, He's teaching us about life, about all of life. And what is the lesson? Well, the primary lesson here is around humility, which we could probably all do with a little bit more of, we could probably all do with a lot more of. And certainly, we live in a culture that doesn't even value humility. And so it's a reminder that, okay, humility, call to humility. Teresa of Avila said, "Humility is truth." And so what is humility? It is not belittling yourself, okay? It isn't lying. It isn't pretending. So for me to pretend that the gifts God has given me He hasn't given me, or for you to pretend that the gifts God has given you He hasn't given you, that's not reality, that's not truth. And so, how can you have great gifts and still be humble? And the answer to that is by recognizing who is the giver of the gifts. You have a great gift, but somebody gave it to you. God gave it to you. And so you received it, maybe you developed it, but He gave it to you. And so this fundamental understanding of the source of goodness you are capable of goodness. Why? You're created in the image of God. You are gifted and talented in different ways. Why? Created in the image of God. And that's the truth. But the goodness, its source is in God. Our gifts, its source is in God. And so when someone praises us, that's fine. But in that moment, we should be praying. We should be praising God. Whatever they're praising in us, that praise belongs to God. Maybe they saw you do a good deed. Maybe they saw your kindness. Maybe they saw your generosity. Maybe you're great at throwing a split-finger fastball. And they saw that and they praised you. And great, that's truth. To acknowledge great gifts, that's truth. But when they're praising us, we should be praising God. We should just be passing the praise on in just a prayer and just a realization. Okay, that's lovely, but actually that praise belongs to God. And when the praise stops with us, that's when we become prideful. When the acknowledgements stop with us, that's when it becomes prideful. When the gifts stop with us, that's when it becomes prideful.

And so today's reading is an invitation to humility and to generosity. And the latter absolutely requires the former because the more we realize that all is gift from God, the more likely we are to be generous. Abundantly generous with other people and abundantly generous with God. Have a great day. And remember, be bold. Be Catholic.