Did Jesus exaggerate with His parable? I think not. It reminds me of a fiesta in our parish a long time ago. After the solemn Mass, the late Cardinal Sin went to the parish hall for the well-prepared snack. He, the priests, and the parish council president and members were seated at the presidential table. One seat was still empty and suddenly an elderly man came in, saw the empty seat, went there and sat down. When the person who was supposed to sit there arrived, the uninvited guest had to be asked to please vacate the seat.
Yes, it happens. In the case of our fiesta it was surely lack of sensitivity or common sense by the man. But in the meal Jesus attended, He seems to give us a lesson in humility.
Humility! A virtue lacking so much in today’s macho society. Who wants to be humble? Because humility is often interpreted as weakness and cowardice.
What then is this humility that Jesus wants us to acquire?
St. Bernard defines humility as “a virtue by which a person knows himself as he truly is, lowers himself. Jesus Christ is the ultimate definition of humility.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th century philosopher and theologian, defines humility similarly as “the virtue of humility that consists in keeping oneself within one’s own bounds, not reaching out to things above one, but submitting to one’s superior.”
“True humility” is distinctly different from “false humility,” which consists of denigrating one’s own sanctity, gifts, talents and accomplishments for the sake of receiving praise from others. In this context, legitimate humility consists of the following behaviors and attitudes:
Submitting oneself to God and His legitimate authority; recognizing virtues and talents that others have, particularly those which outshine one’s own, and giving due honor recognizing the limits of one’s talents, abilities or authority, and not reaching for what is beyond one’s grasp.
To be really humble needs a lot of courage and strength. It’s far from weakness!
