Thir­ti­eth Week of Ordi­nary Time 

On the Thir­ti­eth Sun­day of Ordi­nary Time we have Jesus’ dra­mat­ic sto­ry of the Phar­isee and the tax col­lec­tor stand­ing in the tem­ple, the Phar­isee relieved that “I am not like the rest of human­i­ty” and the tax col­lec­tor with eyes down, beg­ging for mer­cy. “Who­ev­er exalts him­self will be hum­bled, and the one who hum­bles him­self will be exalt­ed.”

Tues­day is the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apos­tles. Mon­day is the great Solem­ni­ty of All Saints, fol­lowed on Sat­ur­day by the Com­mem­o­ra­tion of All the Faith­ful Depart­ed (All Souls).

The first read­ing all week con­tin­ues with the third week of Paul’s longest let­ter, the Let­ter to the Romans, with his teach­ing of the Holy Spir­it in our lives.

The Gospel of Luke offers a glimpse of Jesus heal­ing and teach­ing the peo­ple, even as he con­tin­ues to clash with reli­gious lead­ers. He cures the “bent woman” on a Sab­bath and tells of the tiny mus­tard seed which devel­ops to become a full-grown bush. He repeats that it will not be easy to enter the King­dom: “For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” He defies those who bring word of threats on his life and defies the silent Phar­isees who watch as he cures a man on the Sab­bath. Jesus encour­ages us to be hum­ble: “For every­one who exalts him­self will be hum­bled, but the one who hum­bles him­self will be exalt­ed.”

Next Sun­day is the Com­mem­o­ra­tion of All the Faith­ful Depart­ed. We hear from Jesus in the Gospel of John assur­ing the crowds that “Every­thing that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject any­one who comes to me, because I came down from heav­en not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose any­thing of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.”
 

Dai­ly Prayer This Week

Please, Lord, any­thing but humil­i­ty! Our instinc­tive reac­tion to humil­i­ty might be the result of a cul­ture that exalts rich­es, hon­ors and pride. Yet all this week Jesus teach­es that the way to sal­va­tion is through humil­i­ty.

The first step might be sim­ply ask­ing for the desire to be hum­ble. As we move through the sim­plest of moments in our every­day lives, we can stop and ask God to help us want to be hum­ble. As we sit on the edge of the bed in the morn­ing, as we head to work, sort laun­dry or do our errands, we can keep a run­ning prayer in the back­ground of our con­scious­ness: “Lord, help me to desire the humil­i­ty that will make me more aware of your sav­ing grace.”

These same back­ground moments offer ways for us to rec­og­nize oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice humil­i­ty as we go through our days. Per­haps I can stop myself from cor­rect­ing my spouse. In a dis­agree­ment, I might make an extra effort to lis­ten to the oth­er person’s side rather than plan­ning my rebut­tal as they speak. I can let a per­son in line in front of me, hold the door for some­one or make an extra effort to rec­og­nize and thank those who serve me. Even these tiny ges­tures, when done in the spir­it of Jesus’ teach­ings this week, offer us a spe­cial grace.

All week we can con­tin­ue to speak to the Lord as we would to a lov­ing friend who lis­tens to us. And always, we can end our day in grat­i­tude, for the mer­ci­ful God who loves us so com­pas­sion­ate­ly and longs to be in our hearts.