Places of Honor

All of us love to be recognized and honored. We get a good feeling about ourselves when others see our worth and importance. What is critical here for the Christian is that others do that for us and that we do not do it for ourselves. Jesus says, "Do not recline at table in the place of honor . . . take the lowest place." If we give ourselves the places of honor then that honor has no real value precisely because it is not recognized by others, it is self-serving. If we do that Jesus will humble us and move us to the back. Yes, God does humble us and He even punishes us when we are self-serving, sinful, or foolish. However, when others move us to places of honor then the gesture-act is genuine because it is ratified by another who has seen our good works, and those works are the cardinal and theological virtues. We are not moved up because we are a nice persons, popular, in charge, educated, or part of the club, but rather because we are persons who emulate the two great commandments of loving God and neighbor.

The dangers of being prideful and self-serving is that we will shut ourselves off from many people. There is usually only one head table at a banquet, wedding, dinner party etc. There are many tables after table #1. If we seek out table #1 then we will probably dismiss all the other tables as less than us.

In the Church we must all keep our guard against allowing that kind of thing from creeping in. We usually point fingers at the hierarchy of the Church of being guilty of that type of thing, but in reality we are all guilty of it from time to time to lesser or greater degrees. For instance the very people who complain about the Pope and Bishops having "places of honor" will defend their own "places of honor" with vigor and a fiery determination if ever called into question.

Pope John Paul the Great lived the motto "Servant of servants." He truly lived it and while he was alive asked us to live it. Therefore, the Christian should not be looking to be honored, to have a place of importance, or even leadership, but instead should be looking, searching, and living out a life of service and competing to be a better servant.

When we do that Jesus will move us up to a place of honor because He grants it and it is not from ourselves. True humility can only happen when we take the last place of all and when we actually love taking that last place, anything else is tainted with pride.

Fr. John