Lk 14:1, 7-14
One Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and he was carefully watched.
Jesus then told a parable to the guests, for he had noticed how they tried to take the places of honor. And he said, “When you are invited to a wedding party, do not choose the best seat. It may happen that someone more important than you has been invited; and your host, who invited both of you, will come and say to you, ‘Please give this person your place.’ What shame is yours when you take the lowest seat!
Whenever you are invited, go rather to the lowest seat, so that your host may come and say to you, ‘Friend, you must come up higher.’ And this will be a great honor for you in the presence of all the other guests. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus also addressed the man who had invited him, and said, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers and relatives, or your wealthy neighbors. For surely they will also invite you in return, and you will be repaid. When you give a feast, invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Fortunate are you then, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the upright.”
REFLECTION
READ: When you give a feast, invite the poor… because they can’t repay you; and you will be repaid at the Resurrection of the upright.
REFLECT: One of the purest joys we can know in this life is to perform an act of kindness that no one will notice. As Jesus tells us, “Happiness lies more in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35)
PRAY: Let us ask for the virtue of disinterestedness, so that our left hand may not know what our right hand is doing (cf. Mt 6:3).
ACT: Let us be kind to a perfect stranger today and, if possible, let our act of kindness go unnoticed.
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