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Two-Minute Homily by Fr Saldie Resolado OSA for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023.
“Humility is a willingness to share the gifts we have been given, not out of motivation for oneself, but for the common good of all people.”

• Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Author: Archdiocese of Brisbane

  
  In our Gospel today Jesus said, the greatest among you must be your servant. Isn’t this an amazing prelude to the approaching feast of Christ the King in the next three Sundays? Jesus teaches humility as the way to greatness. Jesus is a great model of humility and service. In Gethsemane through prayer, he got the strength to let go of his will and submit to the will of his Father, not my will but yours be done. Crucifixion was the form of death penalty used for common criminals at that time in the Roman Empire. And Jesus was executed as a common criminal. But through his death he won life for all of us. The Son of Man came to serve not to be served.

  The Pharisees had forgotten their true calling as servants of God hence Jesus criticised them and tried to lead them back to what the ministry is about. That it is not about being esteemed, being loved, being honoured, being praised, being preferred to others and being above others. Instead, Jesus exemplified true service to the truth by being humiliated, being despised, suffering rebukes for the sake of the truth. Jesus reminded the Pharisees about purifying their desires and intentions. And this could also be a reminder for all of us. There is a Pharisee too in each of us that regularly falls into traps that lead to pride. We pray that Jesus deliver us from these temptations.

  One of the next models of humility and service that I wish for us to imitate is Saint Augustine. When he was a bishop in Hippo, now Annaba, Algeria, he knew that his brother priests were erring and failing to be faithful to their calling of service. Saint Augustine taught them humility as a willingness to generously share the gifts they have been given as one created in the image and likeness of God while also knowing their own limitations. In other words, humility is a willingness to share the gifts we have been given not out of motivation for oneself but for the common good of all people while also knowing our human limitations, especially our own inclination towards pride which can lurk even in good works.

  Augustine simply reminded them about humility as a remedy for pride. The source of that antidote, humility, is Jesus Christ. God cures us with his own humility by showing us, through the self-emptying of Jesus Christ, the path to reclaiming our true identity as God’s beloved and reordering our motivations and search for fulfilment not in earthly things but in God alone, our servant-King. Have a blessed Sunday.