Monday of
the 31st Week in Ordinary Time
November 3, 2014 8:30am
I am taken today by Saint Paul’s
words in our first reading:
“Humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, everyone
looking out not for their own interests, but also for those of others.”
I think Paul is exaggerating just
a bit here, but his message is still good.
Paul is writing to a community
that is torn by divisions.
Its unity is threatened,
especially its spiritual unity.
So Paul is exhorting them to be humble
in the sense of being respectful of others.
Jesus himself tells us to make
others our equal: “Love your neighbor as
yourself.”
So when Paul says, “Humbly regard others as more important than
yourselves,” he may be exaggerating a bit, but to make his point.
Paul wants them, and us, to
listen to one another as much as we expect to be listened to;
to try to understand the
viewpoint and perspective of the other person;
to appreciate the life story and
background of the other;
to respond with words that are
constructive and not destructive, that are respectful and not hurtful, and that
are unitive and not divisive.
I think, in the instance Paul is
addressing here, all of this is what it means to be humble.
And if we are humble in this way
in our relationships, that will have a good influence on how we approach some
of the bigger issues that we have to deal with, like the life of the unborn,
immigration, homelessness, poverty at home and abroad, and on it goes.
Again, as Paul says,
“Humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, everyone
looking out not for their own interests, but also for those of others.”
