HOMILY FOR SOLEMN MASS OF THE TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C)
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 31 AUGUST 2025
“Selfie museums” are a curious invention of our age. Carefully staged spaces, filled with colour, mirrors, artworks, monumental or scenic backdrops, they are designed for a singular purpose: to take an attention-grabbing photo of yourself. Unlike traditional galleries that invite us to contemplate something other than ourselves, selfie museums quite literally put us front-and-centre. Although playful, they reflect the degree to which our culture is now comfortable, even obsessed, with self-promotion, curated images for posting, valuing ourselves by the ‘likes’ we can generate. That hunger for visibility and adulation seems at odds with today’s biblical injunction…
In our first reading Ben Sirach (Sir 3:19-21,30-31) counsels us: “My son, the greater you are, the more modestly you should behave… for the Lord prefers the homage of the humble to the proud man’s incurable malady.” The Psalmist (Ps 67(68)) likewise sings God’s praises as friend of the orphan and widow, the lowly and abandoned. And our Gospel (Lk 14:1,7-14) advises us, if having a party, not just to invite the celebrity set but a good mix of nobodies as well; and if we are a guest at the do, to assume a less prominent place. Some would say that of all the dominical commands this last one is the best observed by Catholics, as they compete for the back pews in every church! Whatever the reasons, most Catholics prefer not to big-note themselves religiously, to be circumspect about good deeds, not to wear holiness as a vanity project—and for that they have plenty of biblical support.[1]
Yet today’s Gospel also seems to suggest that if you can’t be genuinely humble you should at least act like you are, for that might be enough to get you an upgrade from spiritual economy to business class. But that hardly fits with the Jesus who hated sham, exposed illusions, and unmasked hypocrisy. Make your Yes mean Yes and your No be No, He said; preach what you believe and practice what you preach. No lip-service or deeds just for show. “Woe to you hypocrites! For like whitened sepulchres you are beautiful outside but dead and corrupting within.”[2] As St Francis de Sales said: “True humility never pretends to be humble.”[3]
So, if humility is not about pretending to lower ourselves, is it about genuinely thinking we are of little value? If vicious pride is having an inordinately high view of ourselves and hogging the limelight, does humility mean putting ourselves down, wringing our hands, and avoiding attention? Well, this too doesn’t fit with the Jesus of the Gospels. Far from encouraging self-loathing, He built people up, insisting we are made in God’s image, as His beloved children; and giving Himself to restore that image and status to us. Jesus openly reinstated the likes of the woman caught in adultery, the outcast lepers, the prostitutes and tax-collectors, the prodigal son.[4]
The Fathers of the Church saw humility not as self-hatred but rather as a realistic self-assessment that could be a foundation for growth in virtue and holiness. Already at the end of the first century Clement I wrote that as Christ “did not come with an ostentatious show of His superiority, as well He might, but with a humble spirit”, so “He belongs to the humble-minded, not to those who vaunt themselves”.[5] No feigned modesty here, no contempt for self either. The great Western doctor, Augustine of Hippo, said that for Christian character and spiritual growth, what was needed was “first humility, second humility, third humility”.[6] Without it like fallen angels our vision is impaired, we are driven by the need to be admired, and we are domineering; with it, we are liberated from corrupting pride, realistic about our own potential and limits, and ready to rely on God’s grace.
The 7th-century Syriac bishop Isaac of Nineveh said a truly humble man does not rely on the esteem of others: he is sufficient to himself and complete in God.[7] Humility, he thought, is like salt: a preservative against corrupting pride and a flavour enhancer for Christian living.[8] The 13th century monk, Gregory of Sinai, said true humility is not saying humble things, assuming humble looks, or belittling oneself in other ways, but recognising all the good we can and do do, and ascribing that first and foremost to God.[9]
Gregory’s Western contemporary, Thomas Aquinas, taught that true humility and its complementary virtue of magnanimity allow realism about our gifts and deficiencies, so we neither overestimate nor underestimate what we are capable of under grace, and relative to our fellows, and we temper our appetites and behaviour accordingly.[10] Pride fails to acknowledge our limits and need for God, while pusillanimity fails to acknowledge our gifts and stretch ourselves accordingly, denying God the chance to magnify our efforts.
All these great readers of today’s Gospel passage tell us humility is about having a sense of proportion about ourselves, our fellows and God. In confronting us with the sometimes humiliating, sometimes encouraging, but always stark truth, it enables us to see what we can and cannot do. It should make us fearlessly frank about ourselves, despising vainglory and flattery, but also fearlessly hopeful, despising false humility and self-loathing.
So, when Jesus tells His disciples to be humble hosts and guests, he’s not saying be mediocre and eschew all honours, but to put these excellences in their place. We properly do great things, deserving of honour, but not for the sake of worldly praise. We are not driven by popularity, nor deterred from doing the right thing even if unpopular. Jesus teaches us not to worry so much about what others think of us, whether we are the host or the guest, the leader or the led.
How to manage the all-too-human impulse to put ourselves front and centre in our own selfie museum? One clue is today’s suggestion that we invite all sorts into our company, getting comfortable with those who cannot honour or repay us, won’t add Facebook likes or cheer our latest image: the poor and powerless, young and old, suffering and forgotten. In reaching out to them in love and service we can exercise true humility, that salt of virtues. In doing so we make our parties like that great banquet promised in our epistle (Heb 12:8-9, 22-24), when we shall “come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” where we shall gather for the feast with millions of angels and saints, the whole Church in which are all “heirs and citizens”—not just the bold and the beautiful, but the faithful of every sort. There we will sing with Mary that the Almighty and All-merciful One has done great things for us, filling the hungry with good things while sending the sated away empty, casting the self-important from their thrones and raising up the humble (Lk 1:52-53).
[1] Ex 10:3; Num 12:3; Ps 131:1; Prov 3:34; 11:2; 16:19; 22:4; Job 42:1-6; Ruth 2:10-13; Isa 57:15; 58:5; Micah 6:8; Zeph 2:3; Mt 5:3; 6:3-4,6,18; 8:5-13; 23:11; Lk 1:38,52; 9:46-48; 18:9-17; Jn 1:20-23; 3:30; 13:1-17; 1Cor 1:28; 15:9-10; 2Cor 12:7-10; Rom 12:3; Phil 2:3-8; Eph 4:2; Col 3:12; 1Tim 1:15-16; 1Pet 3:8; 5:5-6; Jas 4:10.
[2] Jesus on meaning what you say: Mt 5:37; Lk 23:2-3 etc. On not honouring God with lip-service only, or doing good deeds just for show: Mt 6:1-18; 15:7-9; 23:5,23-26; Lk 11:37-54. On whitened sepulchres: Mt 23:27-28. Likewise Mk 3:5; 11:15-18; Lk 12:1; cf. Isa 29:13; Amos 5:21-24; Rom 2:1; Jas 1:26.
[3] Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (transl. H.B. Mackey, Rivington’s, 1876), part III, ch https://ccel.org/ccel/ desales/devout_life/devout_life.v.v.html
[4] Humanity is made in God’s image: Gen 1:27; 5:1; 9:6; Wis 2:23; Sir 17:1-4; 2Edr 8:44; 1Cor 11:7; 2Cor 3:18; Rom 8:29; Col 1:13-15; 3:10. We are God’s children and He is a loving Father: Mt 5:9,16; 6:9,26; 7:11; 18:3; 19:14; 28:20; Jn 1:12-13; 3:16; 11:52; 1Thess 5:5; 2Cor 1:3-4; 6:18; Rom 5:8; 8:14-17,38-39; 9:8,26; Gal 3:7,26; 4:6-7; 5:22-23; 6:10; Eph 2:4-5,19; 3:18-19; 5:1; Phil 4:19; Col 3:12; 1Jn 1:3; 3:1-2,10; 4:11; 5:2; Jas 1:17. Jesus gave Himself to redeem us: Lk 19:10; Jn 3:16; 15:13; Acts 4:12; Rom 5:8; Gal 2:20; Col 1:13-14 etc. Jesus restored to dignity the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11), the outcast leper (Mk 1:40-45 etc.), the prostitutes and tax-collectors no-one would associate with (Mt 9:10-17; Mk 2:15-22; Lk 5:29-39; 7:37-39; 19:1-10; 23:43), the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32).
[5] 1 Clement 16:1-2.
[6] St Augustine, Letters 83-130 (transl. Wilfrid Parsons, Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 282: “If you should ask me what are the ways of God, I would tell you that the first is humility, the second is humility, and the third is humility. Not tha there are no other precepts to give, but if humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.” Cf. Joseph McInerney, The Greatness of Humility: St Augustine on Moral Excellence (Pickwick, 2016).
[7] Hilarion Alfeyev, The Syriac World of Isaac the Syrian (Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 112-13.
[8] St Isaac the Syrian, ‘Homily 77’, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (transl. Dana Miller, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1984), p. 342.
[9] Gregory of Sinai, Texts on the Commandments and Dogmas, no. 115. Likewise St Peter of Damascus, A Treasury of divine Knowledge.
[10] St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIa IIae q. 161. Cf. Louis Marie Zogg, Aquinas on Humility: Evidencing Man’s Relation to God (Catholic University of America Press, 2017); Christopher Kaczor and Sherman Thomas, Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues (Catholic University of America Press, 2020).
INTRODUCTION TO SOLEMN MASS OF THE 22ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C)
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 31 AUGUST 2025
Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney for the Solemn Mass of the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.
As you are aware, many of the major roads in and around our city have been closed this weekend due to the Sydney Marathon, which began earlier this morning with an estimated 35,000 participants. So getting here has involved something of an obstacle course for you all. That despite such disruptions, you have come to celebrate the sacred mysteries, is a beautiful witness of faith—a reminder that we are all called to persevere in the spiritual race set before us!
To all of you here today, whether visitors or regulars, a very warm welcome to you all!