Reflections on the Sunday Readings: October 18, 2009

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The Lectionary Readings for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time continued the theme of virtue from the previous week.  This week, the virtue at the center of the readings is humility.  Humility is that virtue which keeps us in our proper place, especially in relationship to God.

In the Gospel reading, two of Jesus’ disciples ask to be granted the “favor” of sitting at His right and His left in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus reminded those two men that grave suffering (yes, death) would come before either of them entered the Kingdom of Heaven.  That surely was meant to teach them about humility.

Further, Jesus remarked that “whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”  Say what?  If I want to be first, I have to be a slave?  Yes, the virtue of humility teaches us to find God’s glory even while taking the place of a slave to others, because we begin to realize that’s what He did for us!

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