True Humility

When reading this weekend's readings I was drawn at first to the Gospel; I thought that I may have been drawn to it because I spent last weekend at a family wedding and had a great time.  In my head I'm thinking, "ok I got this, I can totally play off of this week's readings and my wedding from the other day" but before I sat down to write, I reread all of the readings again and realized I wasn't drawn to the Gospel because of the wedding, I was drawn to the Gospel (and the 2nd time around) the first reading, because of the message of humility.  

"My child, conduct your affairs with humility,

and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.

Humble yourself the more, the greater you are,

and you will find favor with God." From the Book of Sirach

And 

For every one who exalts himself will be humbled,

but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." From the Gospel according to Luke

Humility is one of the most misunderstood virtues and one that is often fun to reflect on what authentic humility actually is.  When I am being humble, am I just pretending to be humble or do I actually feel that humility in my heart, is that how I truly feel?  

Each day, I try to read something spiritual and not just the front page of espn.com.  Sometimes I succeed in reading daily and sometimes it's more of a challenge and I only do it once or twice a week.  When I do make time to read, one of things in my rotation of spiritual readings is a website called "Daily Reflections on Divine Mercy: 365 Days with Saint Faustina."  Ever since I visited St. Faustina's convent in Krakow, Poland, I have had a deep love for the Divine Mercy and St. Faustina.  One of the images on the wall in my office came from that convent; it's an image of Jesus' Divine Mercy shining down on Pope Saint John Paul II and the words "Jezu Ufam Tobie" written underneath, which is "Jesus, I trust in you" in Polish.

When reflecting on the readings today I remembered an article from that site that I had read recently on humility that I really enjoyed and thought I would share with all of you this week:

"The glorious virtue of humility must be understood, continually pondered and continually embraced.  What is humility?  It is nothing other than knowing the truth about yourself, believing that truth and living in accord with that truth.  Only you and God know the depths of your conscience.  Human opinion matters little.  Some may offer false judgments of you presuming your pride or another sin.  And at other times some may speak words of flattery, exaggerating your virtue from impure motives.  Neither false criticism nor words of flattery foster humility because they both have as their intention something other than the truth.  Some holy souls may even seek to misrepresent the truth of who they are by either exaggerating their holiness or by misrepresenting their misery so as to gain the praise or sympathy of others.  But, again, humility has as its goal the truth of who we are.  Seek to know and believe the full truth of your life, and then seek to live that truth openly and honestly.  This purity of intention will allow your true self to emerge, and through this humble act the Lord will shine forth from your soul (See Diary #1502-1503).

Ponder today the truth of who you are.  Seek complete honesty in regard to your actions and your intentions.  Understand yourself and seek to know yourself as God knows you.  Doing this will foster great humility.  As you grow in humility, see also the truth of God and His greatness.  Humbly acknowledge all that God does for you.  Seeing God at work within you and honestly expressing this with gratitude will allow Him to shine forth beautifully for all to see.  This is truth and this is humility.

Lord, I desire to know the truth of who I am.  I seek this truth and desire to allow it to shine forth with honesty and integrity.  I pray also that I see Your greatness and acknowledge Your workings in my life.  You are glorious, dear Lord.  May this truth shine forth.  Jesus, I trust in You." From https://divinemercy.life/2018/10/02/reflection-311-the-truth-of-humility-2/

Reflection by: Matthew Bensman

#HolyMoments

As I reflect on Luke’s gospel this weekend, two lines spoke to me.

“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell you but rather division.”

Division! That sure does ring true for our times now especially if you listen to mainstream media. Families will be divided. Everywhere I turn now, that is what is happening. And many of us happily participate in the dividing by our comments on social media, through our bumper stickers, ignoring our neighbors and/or family in need as put our heads down and look the other way.

We are dividing ourselves by picking sides in every war, battle and/or skirmish—political, religious and social. We see our families and communities being divided by drugs and depression at alarming rates. We also see more and more people moving away from religious beliefs and practices which breaks down the community that develops when we pray together rather than singularly or not at all.

Recently I was speaking with a young man at a business conference. He told me that he was not raised with any faith and doesn’t have any today. He didn’t not believe but didn’t feel the need to go to the effort to get involved in an organized religion. He felt like living by the “Golden Rule” was enough. That is a great rule and practiced in a faith community has the ability to have a much deeper and greater reach.

“I’ve come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

In many ways I do feel the earth is blazing. There are “hotspots” of emotion everywhere, including in our own church, and if we continue like this we may burn up and burnout. The answer? In my opinion it is to create holy moments. Stop amplifying the differences among each of us and seek the common good.

Maybe God does divide us in order to wake each of us up so that we set the world on fire for the love of Jesus. Rather than hiding in our differences, we will seek to love one another for our humanness and to understand the other before judging and/or dividing them.

My husband and I had a holy moment last weekend when we were at AutoZone putting large amounts of oil into our Jeep. A stranger came over and offered to help. We didn’t necessarily need it but he knew a thing or two about cars so we accepted his help.  He went out of his way to offer some insight and kindness. After talking a bit, I offered him a hug for his kindness. For in these times where we are all so busy, often being divided, he took the time to just help. Where have you experienced a holy moment lately? Or better yet, where can you create one, or two or ten this week? Together, we can set the world on fire. #HolyMoment.

Reflection by Paula Harris

Finding Joy

        These are the years of memories. When you reach a certain (unspecified) age memories tend to flood in at unexpected moments. A scene in a movie, the scent of a meal or flower, the mention of someone’s name or even an inspiration spawned by a scripture reading... like this weekend’s readings. Imagine!

        “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” Thoughts come rushing back of younger days, working at a great, since defunct, company. Being part of Polaroid’s Vision Research Laboratory in the 80’s was at once challenging, rewarding and exciting. From one day to the next our lab never knew what we would be asked to find, prove or just try to see if the principle was sound. If we were successful Dr. Edwin Land would exclaim it “fun”, his favorite term for experiments gone well.

    One Spring afternoon, while attending a brain-storming meeting of minds discussing a perplexing obstacle to our experiment, I proposed a resolution, which was swiftly ignored much to my chagrin. By the end of that week we sat in a subsequent session to resolve the obstinate problem when a colleague offered the identical solution I had voiced a couple days prior. To my surprise this was received with great fanfare and hailed as a major break-through. It was not proper scientific etiquette to claim this was my original proposal.

         I departed work that day with some mixed emotions regarding what to do. My initial reaction was to speak up and claim at least a portion of the credit, which I believed I was due, for this solution. On thinking further, I decided silence might be the best avenue… the higher road. After all our project needed to be assembled, tested (played with) and presented in a couple days to Dr. Land. There was much to do and, as there were only a couple people in our lab with the ability to accomplish such a complex mission, forging ahead was the path I chose.

            That night, while seeing my youngest daughter to bed, I received a lesson in simplicity and humility. After the customary prayers and stories, I found her smiling a huge grin. When I asked what brought  her such joy she told me she couldn’t wait to go to sleep so she could wake up in the morning and enjoy another day, and all the wonderful things she’d do “while growing up.” The power of those words still amazes me!

  

           The next morning, I unlocked the laboratory door and dug in to complete our mission, happy to have been given the skills and intellect to do so, and to be part of a small team charged with accomplishing the near impossible. It was awe-inspiring to know God had provided me the gifts necessary to fulfill my responsibilities and the position in which to enjoy the fruits of these gifts… perhaps the greatest of which is another day to enjoy all the wonderful things I could do.

                Be happy! Be grateful! Stay well!

Reflection by Beau Stebbins