Pride or Humility?
By Deacon Rod Knight
Father Adam was sitting beside me at a table during the Fall Clergy Workshop. A Deacon was addressing the gathering, and he said, “I was acting as a Deacon,” and went on with his story. Father Adam turned to our predominantly Deacon table and said,” You are Deacons, you are never acting as Deacons”.
By God’s grace and the Sacrament of Holy Orders, some are Deacons, and some are Priests, even if they would choose to perform heinous acts. Three Sacraments leave an indelible mark on the soul: Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. These Sacraments cannot be undone. We could be excommunicated; we could commit grave sin and even leave the Church. It does change who we are.
We are all created in the image of God. But not all of humanity recognizes our Creator. Is it due to pride? Imagine being in Hell with the indelible mark on your soul as a child of God. In the Gospel we heard the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (tax collector). The Pharisee who prayed to himself, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity– greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income”. The ancient Jewish group/sect known as the Pharisees was distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law (commandments). “Publicans or tax collectors were the most loathsome and despised people in Israel. They worked for the Roman masters and conquerors to transfer money from Jewish pockets to Roman pockets, and they milked their own people dry for the sake of their hated oppressors. They were empowered and encouraged by Rome to raise the taxes as much as they could, and everything above and beyond the legal minimum that Rome demanded, they could keep for themselves. They were literally legal thieves” (Peter Kreeft). Yet Jesus teaches “ the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
How was the immoral tax collector justified over the moral Pharisee? The Pharisee was praying to himself, worshipping himself for his goodness, he was wallowing in his pride and acting is if he were God. The tax collector, understanding who he was, knew that he wasn’t worthy to look to the heavens and begged his Creator for mercy with true humility. I will never forget being ordained. Lying face down on the marble floor, surrendering to God, humbling oneself to the Creator whom we owe all things, is a sign of unworthiness for the sacred office we are about to assume.
If you would say Deacon Rod is not worthy, you would be right. I pray that I may never forget that God has allowed a broken sinner to serve Him and His Church. As Catholics, may we never forget the indelible marks we bear, never compare our spiritual gifts to those of our brothers and sisters, know who God is, and know we are not Him. May our humility always keep our pride in check.