A humbled church and a humbled nation – what can we learn?

This is the presentation I gave at the Annual Claremont Oratory Program in 2002.
 
September 11 and Catholic Church scandals of last five months.  Humiliation.  Nothing will ever be quite the same for either nation or Church.

Humility.  It's a hard word.  Can a 227-year-old nation learn from a 2000-year-old tradition, even if the Church that had kept that tradition alive has some obvious problems in practicing it?

Humility is strong in scripture as the key virtue, without which all else is valueless.  “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” . . . Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. (James 4:6,10)

We can’t get humility just by trying.  Humility isn’t merely another accomplishment to be proud of!  Experience shows: no humility without humiliation.  We can rise from humiliation, not with the pride that reinflates us, and only serves to increase our vulnerability no matter what we do to try to protect us.  We can rise from humiliation more sure where our ground is., more careful where we place our feet and the direction of our steps.  Word “humility” comes from Latin “humus,” meaning earth, soil, ground.  It means to recognize where we come from and are going, and in between where we stand, where we find our foundation.  We are “humus” into which God has breathed spirit.  (Also root of “human”!)

For our nation, humility may mean an examination of our national conscience, our goals and priorities in the light of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [must be taken inclusively] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And, as the next line says, that the government exists primarily to secure these rights – for all without exception.

The Statue of Liberty preserved was preserved on September 11. But can we take pride in that symbol when we ignore its inscription?

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Those words greeted my grandparents.  And, I suspect many of yours as well.  Yet our public policy, and our attitudes, find those words embarrassing, and for many, those words do not ring true.  Should we perhaps shroud her in black until we examine our national conscience: How well do we welcome the poor, etc. ?

And the Church?  We have to sit quietly – perhaps kneel quietly, and bow profoundly – and take to heart again the words of our Savior, “the greatest will be the one who serves the rest.”  Yes the ways of worldly power and manipulation have too often found their way into ministry.  We have to rediscover the meaning of the ministry: to stand small (not as put-down or weakness, but to build the other person up).  The Church will recover its moral voice only in a posture of humility.

How can the Church live in our 21st century American society?  I think we will have no trouble discovering how to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” if we can be sure that we have fully and without compromise “rendered unto God the things that are God’s.”