Humility. Annunciation, August 27 (2025-08-31)

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2025-08-31, 22^nd Sunday  ●● Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29, ●● Psalm 68 ●● Hebrews 12:18-19, 22;24a ●● Luke 14:1, 7-14

1. Gospel to homily

After the Gospel is read at Mass, the priest or deacon prays silently: “Through the words of the Gospel may our sins be wiped away.”  It’s a reminder that these words are not just stories from long ago. They are alive, meant to wake us up, to cleanse us, to draw us closer to Christ and to remind us of being humble listeners.

And in Gospel we hear Jesus’ words: “Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”

 2. The Wake-Up Call

We all know how hard it can be to wake up in the morning. The alarm rings, but we’re tired, overwhelmed, wishing the day could wait.

Jesus speaks right into that feeling: “Stay awake.” He doesn’t say this to frighten us. He says it as a gentle reminder: Live each day as a gift. Don’t postpone love. Be ready—because every day is a chance to meet Him.

 

3. Humility Before God and One Another

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus also tells us: “When you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place.”

 

This is His way of teaching humility. Not false humility that puts us down, but true humility—remembering who we are before God: His children, completely dependent on His mercy.

 

Saint John Chrysostom said: “Look not at the place of honor, but at the need of the other.” This is humility: being awake to those around us, especially those who suffer.

 

4. A Community in Grief

And this week, suffering is not far away. Our hearts are heavy with grief after the tragic shooting at Annunciation School in Minneapolis.

Children, teachers, and families—our brothers and sisters in faith—have endured what no community should ever have to face.

There are no easy words when parents grieve their children, when the young carry wounds in body and spirit, when a school filled with life and learning is shaken by violence.

In moments like this, humility simply means kneeling before God together. We do not pretend to have all the answers. Instead, we weep with those who weep, we pray for those who have died, and we hold close those who are injured or afraid.

 

5. God’s Presence in Our Sorrow

Naturally, logically, we ask also how could such evil be permitted – allowed – by God?

Saint Augustine once said that evil is not a thing God created—it is the absence of the good that should be there. Violence, hatred, cruelty—these are not of God.

 

But even in such darkness, God does not abandon His children. Christ Himself took the lowest place—on the Cross. And from that place of suffering, He showed us that love is stronger than death.

 

Here is where Augustine’s reflection on love helps us. Parents don’t love their children because of what they accomplish or produce. A child is loved simply because they are. Their very existence is a gift.

 

That is why parents who lose a child grieve not only the present, but also the future—the birthdays never celebrated, the graduations never reached, the life they had only begun to know. It feels like not just one story, but an unfinished story, has been torn away.

 

And yet—this fierce love of a parent for a child points us to God’s love for us. God loves us, not for our achievements, but simply because we are His. In that love, He holds close the children taken too soon, and He does not let them go.

 

6. Living Humility and Hope

So how do we move forward in faith? Jesus gives us a path:

1. Take the lower seat. In humility, admit our need for God, and let Him be the one to lift us up.

2. Serve the hurting. Like the banquet host who welcomed the poor and the blind, we are called to stand with the grieving, the wounded, the forgotten.

3. Stay awake in prayer. Every time we pray for the dead and the injured, we are awake to God’s love, even in a broken world.

7. Closing Consolation

Jesus assures us: *“Blessed is the servant whom the master finds faithful when he comes”* (Matt 24:46). And again: *“All who humble themselves will be exalted”* (Luke 14:11).

 

That is our hope. Humility and faithfulness open our hearts to the God who heals, who lifts up the lowly, and who promises that death does not have the last word.

 So today, as we remember the victims and families of Annunciation School, let us entrust them to the God of mercy. And let us also ask for the grace to live humbly and lovingly, awake to His presence.

8. Final Prayer

Lord Jesus, You are close to the brokenhearted.  Receive into Your arms the children and adults who died.

Bring healing to the injured, and comfort to parents, families, and teachers who mourn.  

Grant us the humility to take the lowest seat, the vigilance to stay awake in faith, and the grace to serve one another with love.

May Your peace, which the world cannot give, guard our hearts today and always. Amen.