Lowering oneself

THIS may sound strange, given the mentalities of people today. But, hey, this is how our Lord lived, and what he consistently taught us.

Take the scene of the Last Supper. It’s said that when supper was done, Jesus rose, laid aside his garments, took a towel round him, put water into a basin and then began to wash the feet of his disciples.

Everyone was shocked. Peter asked, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Our Lord insisted that he be allowed to wash Peter’s feet also.

When he was done, our Lord said: “If I, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.” (Jn 13,14-15)

There’s no other way to imitate Christ and to effectively achieve sanctity and actively participate in his continuing work of redemption. We have to learn to lower ourselves to be able to serve.

All throughout the economy of salvation, this business of lowering oneself is consistently highlighted. First, God created us when he gains nothing from us. When we sinned, God was ready to forgive us and to undertake a very complicated plan to save us.

We have to be wary of our tendency to get self-absorbed, the very opposite of what we are supposed to be—to think always of the others and to serve them unstintingly.

That tendency is actually the stupidest thing we can get enmeshed in. But it’s kind of automatic in us to get self-absorbed. We have to be more aware of this disturbing reality and do something about it non-stop.

Obviously, we also need to think of ourselves. Our problem is that the distinction between what is proper and improper in this act is often lost to many of us.

An array of factors can account for this. There are wrong attitudes and dispositions. There are also hostile or at least uncooperative environments that precisely coddle self-absorption.

Many people are not thinking properly, let alone, praying. Rather, they allow themselves to be driven by their often-blind feelings and emotions. As a result, they find it harder to go beyond their merely personal interests.

To be able to serve others, we need to lower ourselves. St. Paul has this relevant point to say:

“Do nothing out of contentiousness or out of vainglory, but in humility let each one regard the others as his superiors, each one looking not to his own interests but to those of others.” (Phil 2,3-4)

We have to learn to look at others as better than us. But how jarring this idea is to most people nowadays! Everyone wants to be better, if not the best of all. If he happens to acknowledge others to be better, it is often out of envy. Thus, the thinking-of-others crashes into thinking-of-oneself.

Pope Benedict XVI also has something relevant to say recently. He said that loving others is the law God inscribed in our very nature. “Jesus teaches that this love calls us to lay down our lives for the good of the others,” he said.

He urged us that we make ourselves LESS than the others so as to minister to their needs, just as Jesus ‘humbled himself’ so as to give us a share in his divine life with the Father and the Spirit.

This lowering of ourselves can actually be done by us, and even with ease. First of all, because that’s God will and he gives us the necessary graces for it. Then, our nature is capable of it. We just have to actualize what we have the potency to do, what we are meant to be.

Our usual circumstances, our daily activities offer us endless possibilities to live out this God’s will for us and to actualize our potentials. We don’t have to wait for big opportunities. The little things of each day, carrying out our duties and responsibilities of the moment can achieve this goal.

Husbands can think of their wives in a more sustained way, and vice-versa. Same with parents and children, and among our colleagues and neighbors, and even those strangers we meet in the street. We can always think of them and start to serve them in some way.