Humility, true humility is found not by becoming less than who we are, but, rather, by becoming who we truly are in Christ.

For though humility lies in a sense of hiddeness, it is not in the sense that we hide our talents under a bushel basket but, rather, work behind the scenes as Christ accomplishes what He wants through us.

Yet, in order for that to happen, we must heed the instruction of our first reading today from Sirach with its simple and practical instruction: “What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not.” In other words, to use the popular phrase: “Know thyself.”

For by knowing ourselves, our own limitations, we see what true humility is, a realization that, indeed, alone we cannot do anything, but with God all things are possible, and we further see that it is He who gives us this humility, it is He who humbles or He who exalts us.

Mother Teresa, who would have celebrated her 100th birthday this past Thursday, would often speak to her novices about this as humility with a hook. “If I try to make myself as small as I can,” she would say, “I’ll never become humble. It is humility with a hook. True humility, she says, is truth.”

And she then gives some of the best advice I have ever heard, she says:

“Humility comes when I stand as tall as I can, and look at all of my strengths, and the reality about me, but put myself alongside Jesus Christ. And it's there, when I humble myself before Him, and realize the truth of who He is, when I accept God's estimate of myself, stop being fooled about myself and impressed with myself, that I begin to learn humility. The higher I am in grace, the lower I should be in my own estimation because I am comparing myself with the Lord God.”

I remember once I had a spiritual director who made a similar recommendation, he told me to pray that I may see myself as God sees me. If you ever want to be truly humbled I don’t know of a faster or more painful way, because when your soul is laid bare, you come to see who you are and not whom you think you are.

And that is the point I think Jesus is trying to make, that true humility does consist of humbling ourselves, but doing so with the purpose of realizing who we truly are, of seeing ourselves as God sees us, of being the one not at the head of the table but the one bringing the food to those seated.

It is not a hidden pride or a false sense of self-deprecation, but of honesty, of knowing who we are, what we are capable of, and how we stand, as Mother Teresa reminds, next to Jesus, how we stand as one who strives to imitate Him. For, it is by this and this alone that we can come to that wedding banquet, and not just be invited to a higher position but find ourselves, at last, in that place of honor.