Gospel: Lk 14:12-14
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:
In today’s first reading the apostle Paul gives a piece of advice which might appear completely idealistic and impossible to implement in real life: “Consider the others as more important than yourselves.” But is Paul’s advice so unrealistic?
Let us consider first this undeniable fact: every person I meet has a particular talent, knowledge, ability, skill that I do not have. For example, I may be a first-class linguist or mathematician or jurist or teacher—yet I do not know how to change a flat tire or how to repair a cellphone, how to bake a pie or how to sew a dress, how to drive a twelve-wheeler or how to fly a plane. The list of the things that other people can do better than I can is practically endless.
And then there is the spiritual state of other people. If I think seriously about my past sins in comparison with all the graces that I have received, I cannot evaluate my status before God. So how on earth will I have the gall to think that I am better than the next person—even the worst criminal? No, Paul is right. Let us play it safe and look up to everyone we meet.
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