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HOMILIES

31. Homily - Sunday, July 5, 2020

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (Mt 11:25-30)

“I am gentle and humble in heart?”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Do you often repeat in your prayers: “I am gentle and humble in heart?”

These beautiful words of Jesus are perhaps his most comforting ones: “Come to me, all you
that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens. I am gentle and humble in heart.”

This sentence reaches out to us, these words touch us, but at the same time, these words
remain somewhat mysterious. After all, we could ask, what is humility? What does it really
mean to be humble? What is gentleness? What does it really mean to be gentle?

Speaking about humility remains a mystery. Throughout human history, in different philoso-
phies, in different religions, different authors have addressed humility in different ways!

In Christian faith, humility is a virtue at the heart of faith. It is faith’s foundation. The word’s
origin is the word “humus,” which means ground or earth. It is the ground on which the
virtues stand, the foundation on which the virtues are built.

What, then, is humility? We enter into the mystery where we will never cease to discover what
humility is as we will never be sufficiently humble. Being humble is the only way to discover
true humility.

In the Gospel, Jesus affirms that he is humble: “I am gentle and humble in heart.” We can con-
template Jesus in his humility and ask him to teach us to be humble.

We can speak of one aspect of humility with this sentence of Saint Paul: “What do you have
that you did not receive?” (1Cor 4:7). To be humble is to be conscious that what I have, I have
received. All of it.

When Jesus says: “No one knows the Father except the Son”, what is he saying? He continues:
“I know the Father, I have received all things from the Father. I attribute nothing to myself.

(cont’d)

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 216