Homily: September 25, 2024, Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time (Modesty):

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Holy family school Mass

 “Put falsehood and lying far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; provide me only with the food I need.”

This is what we heard in today’s first reading taken from the book of Proverbs in the Bible. It is a prayer request of a holy person.

He asked to be kept away from falsehood and lying, that means he prayed that he will not be a scammer or a liar. And he didn’t care much for being rich but he didn’t want to be poor either. All he asked for was to have food to eat and survive.

That is a very simple prayer, isn’t it?

When you pray, do you ask God for many things?

What do you ask for?

How many of you want to be rich, more than you are now?

When I was your age, I wanted to become rich. I was from a poor farming family. I had to help out at the family farm every day. I enjoyed the work. So I would always think about working hard on the farm to make a lot of money, then I would be rich, I would buy a nice new car, and travel far away to see the world, etc etc. There was a long list of things I wanted to do, if I were rich. But over time, I realized those were just childish dreams.

Wise old philosopher Aristotle once said: “Virtue stands in the middle.” He argued that anything in the extreme is not good. For example, people who are immensely rich might live in constant fear of losing their wealth, fear of being cheated, and never really having trust in anyone, they have no real peace at all.

On the other hand, people who are in extreme poverty would always be wondering if they would ever have food, always too hungry to be happy and having no confidence about life at all.

Thus, anything on the extreme is not good for our body, mind, health and soul. To be excessive is to be obsessive.

So, the prayer we heard in the first reading is a prayer based on the virtue of modesty. To be modest is to be humble and simple, it is a wisdom which avoids excessiveness. It is a virtue that stands in the middle.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sent His disciples out to many places to preach the Gospel, but He told them to “take nothing for the journey.” This was to help them not to be anxious about anything, but to trust that God will provide for all their needs when they set out to do God’s work. That would help them to give themselves totally to the mission and not worry about other things. True enough, they were all well provided as they went about their work. And they were able to perform many miracles through their faith.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We are called to trust in God’s providence. Let us be grateful for what we have. Let us be joyful and satisfied with the blessings God has already provided, and trust that He will always provide for our needs.

Amen.


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