HUMILITY

St. John the Baptist was the first to say, Jesus must increase and I must decrease. More and more I am learning that humility is the only way. As I went to the choir rehearsal and saw such joy and faithfulness, and as I go to praise and worship and see people of this parish getting excited about Jesus, I am seeing more and more how it is nothing I do, but all the Lord. St. Therese of the Little Flower is my Confirmation saint and also the saint I have taken for my missionary bank account. She is also, the patron saint of missions, and I love her child-like faith and simple trust in the Lord. She saw her littleness and realized she could do nothing, but what the Lord did Himself through her. She even dared to trust that the Lord would take her weaknesses and even her sin and transform them into something for His Glory! She talked about this great stairway to heaven that she saw all the saints climb, but said she was too weak to climb this stairway herself. Jesus in His goodness showed her that He Himself would come down from heaven, pick her up in His arms and lift her to heaven as in an elevator. How true this is! For it says in Philippians 2:5 that “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
I was leading praise and worship on Thursday at the Church and it was beautiful. I was amazed and humbled at how the Lord spoke so clearly in the Scriptures. A theme song that we have had on our hearts for this year is a song called “Blessed Be Your Name”. One of the verses goes, “Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, those there’s pain in the offering blessed be your name. Every blessing you pour down I’ll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say, ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your holy name.’” How hard it really is to Praise the Lord when we are suffering and when there are so many difficulties in our lives. I mean so often I forget to thank Him for all that He gives and when I am struggling, I may cry out for help, but to Praise Him in my struggling? I think when all is said and done, it is hard to give Him praise when we are suffering. So often I try and do it on my own, and what I realized we need to do is admit that we’re weak and can’t do it on our own. “The Lord says, His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts!” So of course we don’t understand how to praise Him amidst suffering! We need His Grace to praise, and we need Mary to praise through us and increase out Trust. “For when we are weak, then He is strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
The end of the song is “you give and take away, you give and take away, our hearts will choose to say, Lord Blessed be your name!” It is true, that the Lord gives and takes away. He gives life and takes life, He allows us to be in one place and/or one job for a time, and then closes the door and opens another somewhere else. He brings people and loved ones in and out of our life etc. This can be a scary thought. At any time, the Lord can give and take away. As we continued to sing, though, I realized, that yes the Lord gives and he takes away, but He takes away, EVERYTHING BUT HIMSELF! He is always present, whether we recognize him or not, He is always intimately present, and I can still receive Him daily in the Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity! What a consolation this is! He is always standing at the door of our hearts, knocking (as John Paul II so often said), just waiting to be invited more deeply into our lives.
I am starting to organize this year’s confirmation program. The kickoff meeting for all parents and children is November 1st. Please keep this in your prayers, it is a lot more work than I thought, but it is very exciting!