Blessed will you be because of their inability to repay you

Wis 3,17-18.20.28-29; Ps 67; Heb 12,18-19.22-24a; Lk 14.1.7-14
1 SEPTEMBER

Man’s life on earth is made up of human rules and divine rules. A true man of God respects both. He can respect them if he lives with great humility and pure faith. Without these two virtues no rule might be respected. Jesus asks his disciples to learn from him that is meek and humble at heart. They will live in peace. With humility one sees with the eyes of God himself and others, but he also lives according to the heart of God. What does the Lord ask of his worshipers? That they think being inferior to the others. That they put themselves in the last place to love from it. What does Jesus ask of the guests? That they go to occupy the last places. There could be a more respectable guest and then they are forced to go to the last place. Going from the first to the last is a shame in front of all the guests. Instead, passing from the last to the first it is a great honour. The humble knows that his place is always the last. He sits down and stays there until his master calls him. But even if he were not to call him, he is already happy and blessed because he lives his life according to truth. For the proud, even if he occupies the first place, there is never peace, because there is always someone higher up than him.

Instead, with meekness we live what is happening in our life, making everything a sacrifice to the Lord. Jesus welcomed the cross, he lived it making it a true sacrifice of love. For this mildness he redeemed the world. If we offered to the Lord, living everything as a holocaust of love, in full denial of ourselves, the world would know the difference between the Christian cross and the pagan cross. We Christians are often the ones who live the cross in the pagan way. The world does not see the difference and also repudiates Christ Crucified. If the folly of the world does not see the difference between the two crosses, it might never welcome Christ Crucified. His cross makes eternal difference. If we want the world to believe in the cross of Jesus and in Jesus Crucified, we Christians must show it every day that we live the cross in a new way. We live it by welcoming it with love, carrying it with hope and letting ourselves be nailed to it with perfect obedience to our Father. Many atrocious crimes are from our rejection of the cross. If the Christian worships the Crucifix and refuses the cross, why proclaim the Crucifix to the world or be scandalized if he is rejected?

On a Sabbath he went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honour at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honour. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Then he said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbours, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

With faith, we see everything from eternity. We know that eternal life is the fruit of our works of mercy, almsgiving, goodness and charity. We know that these works are rewarded by God, if done exclusively for Him. If we do them for us, we have already received our earthly reward. There is no divine reward for us either in time or eternity. Living with the most pure eyes of faith, the Christian knows how to transform everything into greater eternal glory. Even the gestures of everyday life are experienced as a function of the sky. He does not make an invitation to have the exchange. He invites those who cannot invite him in turn. He invites Christ, poor and devoid of all good, and He, rich with eternity, gives us his eternal glory as a gift. Faith gives a dimension of eternity to everything. Blessed is that Christian who grows from faith to faith, from humility to humility and from meekness to meekness. He is Christ’s presence on earth.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that every Christian lives every cross with love.