Conduct of invited guests and hosts

Today's Sunday gospel is a lesson in humility and generosity…a trait that we exhort all Catholics to embrace because when you do…the more our Lord Jesus Christ will love you as he is teaching us how to behave when we are invited to a banquet or when we get to host our own parties.This story can be found in your Bible in Luke 14:1, 7-14.

"1 On a Sabbath [Jesus] went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. 7 He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.

 8 "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not rec-line at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, 9 and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, 'Give your place to this man,' and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.

10 Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, 'My friend, move up to a higher posi-tion.' Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

12 Then he said to the host who invited him, "When you hold a lunch or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. 13 Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; 14 Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

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This scripture reading today comes in two parts. The first lesson that our Lord Jesus Christ wants to impart to all of us is for our proper conduct when we are invited as a guest in a party or a banquet. You may think that the God of all heaven and earth would be so petty…he even wants to teach us how to behave in a party or banquet or how to host a banquet.

This lesson is pretty simple and logical. When you arrive at the party, our Lord suggests that when you are looking for a place to sit, our Lord warns us not to recline at the table in the place of honor, which might be re-served for a more distinguished guest and then the host might approach you and ask you to move to another table and thus cause you grave embarrass-ment. He suggests that you're better off if you are seated at a place far from the main table where the special guests would be seated and your host would come and ask you to move up to a better table.

You may think that this lesson is a bit petty. But when we have ga-therings even in our Catholic Communities, you can actually learn a few les-sons that our Lord is teaching us today. This is a lesson in humility, something that few Catholics don't even care to notice. However, this year we have been blessed by the new Pope in the person of Pope Francis who not only preaches humility, he practices it in his daily life.

The best example that Pope Francis taught us Catholics was the day after he was elected Pope…feeling that he needed to check out of his hote-lroom, he therefore asked his aides that he was going to check out. Since the other cardinals were billeted in that hotel, instead of taking the official Papal car reserved for the Pope…he rode on a mini-bus with the cardinals who were going in the same direction. This is a great example of humility.

Being the new Pope, it would have been easy enough for Pope Francis to call an aide assigned to serve him to go to his hotel to pick up his bags and pay the bills and charged it to the Vatican Curia. But that was not to be. Pope Francis went to the front desk and checked out himself, paying his own bills and carrying his bag. I have been reading a lot about the history and our Popes and Pope Francis ranks as a most humble Pope in our time.

After teaching us a lesson on humility, our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us a lesson on generosity when he said, "When you hold a lunch or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neigh-bors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. 13 Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind."

Why is our Lord teaching us this lesson, which is so difficult to do? That's because Christ is God and thinks like God, while we humans only think like humans. Honestly speaking, I have yet to meet a person who had a banquet, but didn't invite his friends or relatives, but the poor, the lame or the blind. But I have been hearing stories that there are a few people who hold parties and purchase separate food to be given to the poor in the streets. Call it meeting halfway. Now if everyone did this…they would be practicing God's love for the poor for that's what he wants us to do.

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