A Message from Fr. Jay
Dear Friends,
All the readings this weekend deliver a message of humility in continuation of last weekend’s message – (persistent) Prayer. The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector reveals the truth that humility leads to real contentment of life. In the second reading, St. Paul, being unsure about what was going to happen to him, expressed his contentment of life by saying, ‘I have competed well, I have finished the race. I have kept faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me’.
At the temple, the Pharisee, full of pride, worshipped himself, yet the Tax Collector, in humility, worshipped the Lord! Humility is one of the cardinal Christian virtues. St. Augustine says “Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues. Hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist, there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”
I read this excerpt from the C. S. Lewis’ article on pride, The Great Sin:
There is one vice of which no man in the world is free, which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else…There is no fault that makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility… According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Pride is essentially competitive… Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.
Let us remind ourselves with the words of St. Paul “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 10:17)
God Bless,
Fr. Jay Raju
- Reading 1: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18
- Reading 2: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
- Gospel: Luke 18: 9-14
