In heaven there is no one who was not humble on earth

Catholic Homilies by Fr Linus Clovis

There was a parish council, much like our own¬, made up of characters like Anna and John and company. They decided it would be important if they promoted in the parish the virtue of humility, especially in children. They said lets find an award, a prize for the most humble person in the parish. A committee was formed, names were put forward and finally they came up and agreed upon Mr. Jones, a little wee shy man who never took credit for the things he did. That Sunday, he was given a gold badge, which said – most humble man in the parish. However the same committee the following Sunday had to take the badge off him. Why? Because he turned up in the chapel that Sunday with a badge on the front of his blazer for everybody to see. He missed a little bit of the point of humility; he wanted to stay basking in that glory. I mention this, because most of us have the wrong idea about the virtue of humility. I mention this because it’s the central theme in the readings today. That’s what I want to talk about today, in three brief points first what is the virtue of humility, what is the vice opposed to it and are there any tips or means or ways we can implant the first and irradiate the second. So what is humility? If you look this up in the books of the saints, the first thing you get is, the only ones who are really meant to define humility are the humble. So that immediately puts us into trouble. None of us are really humble if we admit it. So basically I have taken a few things that the saints have said and I will present that to you now. First up, is something we know and understand, is that the humble person is someone who has a moderate estimation of there own importance. However we have to point out that it has nothing to do with humility, having no esteem of ourselves. The problem is when we go and seek to be esteemed by other people. See the difference; we can appreciate the talents that we have but… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.