The Psalm of today’s mass (Psalm 25) reminds us of the importance of humility – “the Lord guides the humble to justice and teaches the humble his way”.
Just over the past few days in Luke’s gospel we heard the humility of the two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, during the Visitation. Elizabeth’s humility is reflected in her greeting to Mary. Mary’s humility is reflected in her response – her Magnificat.
So we see that a humble disposition has been modelled for us by Jesus, his Mother, and the great Saints.
And what is the key to this virtue? It seems to me that both Mary and Elizabeth recognize who they truly are– God’s creation, sustained by God, and the beneficiaries of God’s goodness. Maybe this is at the core of their humble spirit.
We can go forward imitating the humility of Mary and Elizabeth. We recognize that all of our abilities and all of the good in us comes from God and belongs to God. With a humble spirit we put our lives in God’s hands, we empty ourselves so that God can work in us. With a humble spirit we put others before ourselves, and we put God before all else. And this enables us to truly open ourselves to God so that we can be guided and instructed by him, so that his ways can be made known to us, so that his love might dwell in us.
In a short while, we will celebrate God incarnate – the ultimate act of humility. We celebrate Jesus, our Lord, who humbles himself in obedience to the Father. We celebrate Jesus our servant, who puts each one of us before himself. We celebrate Jesus, our teacher, who shows us how to live today. We celebrate Jesus, our Savior, who died so that we might live forever.
As Christmas nears, we ask God to assist us in our humility so that we can imitate Jesus and serve each other.