He Chooses the Humble
There was no room in the inn.
During the Church's liturgical season of Christmas, we meditate on the fact that our Almighty God, our all-powerful Lord, our omnipotent Creator, descended to us in the form of a helpless baby. He allowed Himself to be born into a poor family, in a wretched stable far from home, and to be laid on the scratchy straw of an animal's feeding trough. The Incarnation of God took place in obscurity and silence, under the most humble and human conditions. This humiliation is so extreme that our minds struggle to understand the profound mystery of it. In this regard, Fulton Sheen remarks: A stable would be the last place one would have looked for the son of God to be born. And that, he says, is why so many missed Him -- they did not recognize Him when He was born, because those who wish to find Christ must stoop down into a lowly cave. To stoop is the mark of humility. "The proud refuse to stoop," says Fulton Sheen, "and therefore, they miss Divinity."
The Lord chooses the humble
It is profoundly striking how often we see God working within this same framework of unimaginable humility. It is the Divine Pattern to take the mundane, the ordinary, the insignificance of mankind and work it for His own profound purpose. Over and over, God consistently uses the small, the poor, the simple, the weak, and the humble to accomplish His work.
We see this visibly in the Old Testament with Samuel, Moses, and Gideon, to name a few. When the prophet Samuel went to Bethlehem to anoint the new king, Samuel looked upon each of Jesse's sons as God rejected each of them in turn. He told Samuel, "...Nor do I judge according to the look of man: for man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart.” It wasn't until the youngest son was called in from watching the sheep that God finally said, "Arise, and anoint him, for this is he." God chose the youngest one, the one who keeps the sheep. When God chooses the unexpected, it is because He sees more deeply than human eyes ever could.
When God called Moses from the burning bush with what seemed like an impossible task, Moses responds in disbelief: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" God's reply was simple: "I will be with you." Yet Moses put forth a second concern, "They will not believe me, nor hear my voice..." And even after God puts this concern to rest with visible miracles, Moses comes up with yet one more excuse why he is unfit for the task: "I beseech thee, Lord," he says, "I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before: and since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have more impediment and slowness of tongue." So, God appoints Moses' brother, Aaron, to assist him, promising, "I will be in thy mouth: and I will teach thee what thou shalt speak." Initially, Moses protested three times, trying to emphasize how unworthy he was to be called by God for such a lofty mission: I'm a nobody, they won't listen to me, and I have a speech impediment. God dismissed all of these concerns with the simple promise: I will be with you.
In a noticeably similar way, God also called Gideon for a great task. When He told Gideon that he would deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian, Gideon responded exactly like Moses did: "But my clan is the weakest, and I am the least in my clan!" God responded with the same words that He spoke to Moses, "I will be with you."
"I return Thee thanks, Father, that Thou hast concealed these things from the wise of this world and has revealed them to the little ones." - Luke 10:21
It is no surprise, then, that some of the most influential apparitions in Church history have happened to the humblest of visionaries. It is an assumption that those who are favored with supernatural communications must have something extraordinary about them; we too easily invest in an idea of perfection that should set them apart from the rest of mankind. As humans, we are disposed to judge by appearances; but it is not so with God. God sees into the depths of our hearts, and often what appears shameful to the world is great in His eyes. To the world, it is the exterior qualities that are of value: the gifts of intellect, birth, and education. Yet what God especially prizes is simplicity and purity.
When Our Lady came to Fatima, she appeared to simple shepherd children. There was nothing remarkable about them. They were uneducated peasants, watching sheep in a field. They could not even read or write when Our Lady first appeared to them. People thought they were delusional, and they suffered cruel and brutal opposition even to the point of being kidnapped and threatened with death.
When Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, she came to a humble Indian named Juan Diego, a simple man who was neither rich nor influential. He did not hold a prominent position within society and the bishop was exceedingly skeptical of his claims.
Bernadette Soubirous was a sickly child who lived in extreme poverty when Our Lady appeared to her in the grotto of Lourdes. Bernadette was a poor learner who could barely read and write due to her frequent illnesses. When Our Lady told her, "I am the Immaculate Conception," Bernadette repeated the words to her parish priest not knowing what they meant.
Sr. Maria Faustina Kowalska was from a poor peasant family. In the convent, she was given the most menial tasks to do because of her lack of education. She suffered tremendously from a terminal illness. Yet, Jesus chose to communicate a message of Divine Mercy through this humble, often bed-ridden nun.
St. Catherine Laboure, the French nun who was favored with the mission of propagating the Miraculous Medal, was also a farming peasant. When she joined the convent of the Daughters of Charity, she could not read or write. One of her Superiors described her as a "child of duty and labor, but especially of humility." Regarding herself, Catherine said, "I have been only an instrument; it was not for myself the Blessed Virgin appeared to me. I knew nothing, not even how to write; it was in the Community I learned all that I know; and because of my ignorance the Blessed Virgin chose me, that no one may doubt." For forty-six years, she led a life of obscurity and hard work, seeking no other satisfaction than that of pleasing God.
What all of these seemingly ordinary people have in common is that they all experienced miraculous apparitions that had a profound and lasting impact on the whole Church forever. God gave them each a remarkable mission. We can see that when God has an important mission to confide, He chooses the most ordinary persons, those not possessing any worldly qualifications. Thus, He displays His power and wisdom by using what is weak to accomplish great results.
When God chooses someone to be an instrument for a great achievement, He chooses the humble because they acknowledge their dependence on His grace. His instruments are imperfect and they know it: they are fully convinced that the favors they receive are not by their own merits, but pure gifts from God. They know they cannot accomplish anything on their own accord; they know they are lacking and weak. Because of this, they take no glory for themselves. The proud steal the glory for themselves, but the humble know whatever good they do flows directly from God's grace. They know that whatever they are capable of is only because He made them capable. It is the consciousness of their nothingness that which leads them to put all of their confidence in God. These souls know they are entirely dependent on God and lean not on their own understanding.
This is why God pours his grace on simple and humble souls. In His infinite wisdom, His dependable pattern is to choose the lowest and least expected.
"Love to be unknown and accounted as nothing." - Thomas A Kempis
It is true that God can equip anyone: He can make anything happen through anyone He chooses. It is also true that God created each one of us individually, and He knows each of us intimately. He constantly seeks us and never ceases to call us to holiness in exactly the way He knows is best for us. God's desire for every soul that He has created is its sanctification. No matter who we are, where we live, or what our personal circumstances are, all of us can be sanctified by walking on the lowliest paths of faithful correspondence to God's will.
In his book Into Your Hands Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Love Us, Fr. Stinissen distinguishes three stages of abandonment.: (1) accepting God’s will; (2) obeying God’s will; (3) being God’s instrument.
The first stage of surrender is a matter of accepting and consenting to God’s will. It is recognizing that God is guiding everything, trusting His plan, and letting Him do His work. This is a "passive" stage where we simply say "yes" by submitting to God’s will as it manifests itself in the daily circumstances of our lives.
The second stage is more active, described as “putting one’s hand to the plow” and being an obedient servant. This is concerned with doing. This deals with obedience to the duties of our state in life and requires detachment as we carry out what God wants us to do.
The third stage is something different, in which we no longer worry about what we do for God but about what we let God do through us. This is the stage of a spiritually mature Christian who is truly God’s instrument, and nothing more. This is a total surrender of the whole self, where we truly put ourselves at God’s disposal.
This is the stage that the saints reached, and the stage of spiritual development that we should be striving for. We must dismiss whatever grand illusions we've created and accept our weaknesses in truth and humility, ultimately becoming a docile instrument in God's hand and allowing Him complete control. We have to be aware of our nothingness and admit it openly; then we can have complete confidence in Divine Aid. We must allow our own initiative to be eclipsed by the influence of the Holy Spirit. By surrendering to Him in this state of docility, we dispose our souls to correspond with all the graces constantly being poured out to us. We can collaborate with God to be the saints that He desires us to be. When we open our souls in this way, Jesus can accomplish His work in us.
O Lord, make me understand that I am nothing, that I can do nothing by myself, and that only in You can I accomplish anything!
