"Man does not live on Bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
Hello Walkers,
The Church has always highlighted the importance of feeding on the Word of God. From the Word, we come to know the person of Jesus and we come to understand how God has called us to live our lives.
This week let us hear what the bible has to say about Humility! Stay tuned for new topics each week!
What does the Bible say about Humility?
Deuteronomy 8:2-3
And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
- This beautiful verse reminds us that the Lord gives us opportunities to learn to be humble! It is through these experiences and events in our lives that we are reminded that we are creatures and He is our creator. That He is God and we are human beings who are constantly in need of God's grace and providence. Think about it. You literally couldn't lift your finger or breathe without God's help!
- Humility is something that is gained and practiced as we grow in wisdom and grace. Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary defines “humility” as: a prominent Christian grace. It is a state of mind well pleasing to God; it preserves the soul in tranquility and makes us patient under trials.
- Biblically speaking, humility is the opposite of pride. And according to one thesaurus source, some other antonyms for humility are: arrogance, assertiveness, egoism, pretentiousness, and self-importance.
What Our Holy Father says about Humility!
“Humility is necessary for fruitfulness,” Pope Francis said at Mass this morning in the Casa Santa Marta. The Holy Father said that the intervention of God overcomes the sterility of our life and makes it fruitful. Then he put us on guard against the attitude of pride that makes us sterile.
Often in the Bible we find women who are sterile, to whom the Lord gives the gift of life. That was the starting point of Pope Francis’ homily on the day’s readings, particularly the Gospel, which tells the story of Elizabeth, who was sterile but who had a son – John. “From the impossibility of giving life,” the Pope said, “comes life.” And this, he continued, happened not only for sterile women but to those “who had no hope of life.” “The Lord intervened in the life of these woman to tell us: ‘I am capable of giving life.’ In the Prophets too there is the image of the desert, the desert land that cannot grow a tree, a fruit, to bring forth anything. ‘But the desert will be like a forest,’ the Prophets say, “it will be huge, it will flower.” But can the desert flower? Yes. Can the sterile woman give life? Yes. The promise of the Lord: ‘I can!’ From dryness, from your dryness I can make life, salvation grow. From aridity I can make fruit grow!”
And that salvation, Pope Francis said, is this: “The intervention of God who makes us fruitful, who gives us the capacity to give life.” He warned that we cannot do it by ourselves. And yet, the Pope said, many people have tried to imagine that we are capable of saving ourselves. All is grace. And it is the intervention of God that brings us salvation. It is the intervention of God that helps us along the path of sanctity. Only He can do it.
But what are we to do on our part?
First, recognize our dryness, our incapacity to give life. Recognize this.
Second, ask: ‘Lord, I want to be fruitful.’ I desire that my life should give life, that my faith should be fruitful and go forward and be able to give it to others. Lord, I am sterile, I can’t do it. You can. I am a desert: I can’t do it. You can.”
The humility to say to the Lord: ‘Lord, I am sterile, I am a desert’ and to repeat in these days this beautiful antiphon that the Church makes us pray: O Son of David, O Adonai, O Wisdom – today! – O Root of Jesse, O Emmanuel, come and give us life, come and save us, because only You can, by myself I cannot!’ And with this humility, this humility of the desert, this humility of a sterile soul, receive grace, the grace to flourish, to give fruit, and to give life.”
Jesus Models Humility for Us!
Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Philippians 2:5-8 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Jesus shows us how to be humble:
- Not seeking His own glory but sought to bring the Father glory
- Came to give and minister and not to take and possess
- Associating himself with the despised and the outcast, never viewing himself above them or them below him
- Patiently submitting to outrageous injury and injustice
- Silently enduring false accusations and not retaliating
- Performing the most humble, menial and repulsive services for others
- Choosing to be like man and with man, though He was fully God
- Wiling to die for those who sinned against him, often repeatedly and never once withheld forgiveness
- Willing to die for us out of love, even though he knew we would reject him at times and that we would forget to be grateful to him.
Reflection Question: Following Jesus' examples, are there acts of humility we can begin to practice so that we can die more to our human pride?
Amen.
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