Download 2015.09.20

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time: 9/20/15—5:00 PM, 7:00, & 8:30 AM
I have here a bottle of Brasso for cleaning brass products, a container of flying insect spray, and a can of
Comet cleanser. One thing they all have in common is that these products are great in doing the things they
are designed to do, but they also have in common something else: they all have warning labels reminding
us that, even though they do good jobs, we need to be careful when you use them or they might hurt us.
Today’s Gospel is about pride and the warning label it carries.
I have here a foam finger like we all have seen at one time or another. “We’re number one!” it
proclaims. We like being number one. We take great pride in our Cardinals and that they have the best
record in baseball. We also take great pride in the diplomas and certificates of merit we receive by hanging
them on our walls. We take great pride in being right. We often take great pride in the type of car we drive,
the type of house we live in, the clothes we wear, or the job we have. We take great pride in our children
and their accomplishments.
But pride also wears a warning label like Brasso or insect spray or Comet cleanser saying to us “Beware.”
Pride can keep us always thirsting for more, thirsting for the best, thirsting for the brightest, thirsting for
highest and can rob us of the ability to be satisfied with anything less. Pride can engender fear, the fear that
comes when we are threatened with the loss of those things that we take pride in. Pride can make us
suspicious of other people whom we may see as rivals. Pride can divide us and build walls between us, even
in our own most personal relationships. Pride can become a cancer that eats away at what is the source of
true joy. Pride can be like quicksand which can drown and suffocate us because we are never satisfied.
Deacon Doctor Bob McDonald, a permanent deacon and psychologist, on one of the Lighthouse Catholic
Media CDs, uttered a quote that I’ve never forgotten reminding us to beware of pride; he said that “The
size of our pride is the size of the distance between God and us.”
Jesus today focusses on this little child. Children in the first century had no rights, no legal standing, no
power, and were totally dependent on their parents and other adults. We often tempted to think that “to
live is to win and to win is to be proud.” Jesus today, by focusing on this child, is saying to us just the
opposite, showing us that “to live is to love and to love is to serve.” The antidote to cancerous, consuming,
dividing, and fear-inspiring pride is humility. I recently came across a definition of humility that expresses
that the importance of this virtue which said, “Humility does not in any way deny our own self-worth.
Rather, it affirms the inherent worth of all persons. Some would consider humility to be a psychological
malady that interferes with ‘success.’ However, wealth, power, or status gained at the expense of others
brings only anxiety and never peace and love.”
I think of a good way to remind ourselves of the importance of humility in counteracting pride is to
regularly look up into the sky. During the day, all we can see is one star, the one we call the Sun. However,
at night, if we are away from the city’s light pollution, we can star after star after star, and, if we have a
strong microscope, we can see galaxy after galaxy after galaxy. Pride is like our looking at the sky during the
daytime when we can only see the Sun, leading us to see only our own individual concerns. Humility is like
looking at the sky at night whereby we see all those other stars and galaxies, reminding us that we are all a
part of a larger universe and that we are all parts of one another. In fact, maybe we could consider that Sun
we see every day to be God’s personal warning label to us, reminding us not to look only at our own
sources of pride because, like the Sun, those sources of pride can blind us. Rather, that Sun we see every
day can be God’s reminder, God’s warning label to us, to look beyond the Sun, to look for those other stars
and galaxies that remind us that there is much more to life than just our own personal concerns, that is,
that we are parts of a larger universe and parts of one another.