OCTOBER 31, 2026 FATHER JOHN BERTAO
And here we are. We made it.
The last day of October and what a beautiful time it is to take this opportunity to pay the greatest honour that we could in this Saturday, in this mass to pray honour to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
You see, friends in Christ, every day provides us with a wonderful chance to grow in love of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Many Christians all over the world have the custom of honouring our Lady on the Saturdays, which we try to do at our parish every chance we get.
She will teach us to foster our humility. Key word. Our humility, which is fundamental to our growth in virtue.
Here is a quote from St. Jean-Marie Vianney, the patron saint of priests, and I quote from the old beautiful man who stated, “Mary is the gate through which all God’s graces pass. She seasons our good actions imparting an enhanced value, adding value to them all. She makes our offering even more acceptable to God.”
This is not me saying, this is St. Jean-Marie Vianney. “She makes our offerings even more acceptable to God.”
Finally, he continues, “She greets us, or she grants us the title of possessors of divine hearts. It might even be said that she intercedes or encourages God to be our servant.”
Strong words, strong words. And he concludes, “This is because God has never been able to resist a supplication of a humble heart.” Amen to that.
Mary is so necessary to our salvation that Jesus takes advantage of every opportunity to confirm praise and blessings to His mother. Obviously, as you can tell, it’s a mouthful, but it’s so true regarding Mary.
And then turning to today’s gospel, have you, for example, ever been giving thought to place of honour, a place of honour on Earth, for example. Perhaps a banquet when everyone is watching you every, every, everything, every moment.
As a personal example. To state that a place of honour is not always the best place to be. I recall one week after my ordination to the priesthood, I was invited to a wedding reception. Now, because I had to celebrate the Mass before going to the reception, I was a little late at arriving.
Unbeknownst to me, when I got there, my chair was sitting at the head table next to the mother of the groom. Not a very good place to be, especially for someone who’s, well, I like to sort of take a backseat.
However, after the dinner was finished, someone commented that I should have had a glass of wine with my dinner. Even though I don’t care for a glass of wine with dinner or at any time.
Also, this person commented, “You should have had only one bowl of soup, not two, because you spoiled the second dish that was coming. It was so good.”
In other words, I was being watched and this person criticized me for what I was doing or not doing. It’s not a very good feeling. And I’m still not comfortable knowing that I am being watched and judged today especially when I’m in a group of people just trying to be like everyone else.
You see, in today’s gospel, we see that Jesus was invited to a banquet. At the table, there were places of greater and lesser honour. The invited guests were no doubt overanxious as to who would be to get the better seat. Jesus took notice of their concern.
Perhaps He waited for the end of the meal before He made the comment that He made as I’m going to repeat it. He stated, “When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, but go and sit in the lowest place.” And you know the rest.
Jesus had probably taken a lesser seat at the suggestion of His host. Jesus lived humility. He also noticed the bad manners that other guests have had. They were totally mistaken in not giving the best seat to the Lord Himself.
The guests should have been overwhelmed by the presence of Jesus just right there in the room with them, but they were thinking about themselves perhaps.
Just think. In the course of our lives, how often do we observe a similar experience? What an enormous effort people make to be noticed and remember perhaps even admired. Yet people put little effort into being closer to God rather be noticed by other human beings.
Perhaps today in your prayers you can take some time and ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to teach all of us some humility. This is the only way to grow in love to her Son and to get closer to Him. And as I have been told many times, humility always wins the divine heart.
St. Maria once stated, and I quote, “I am convinced every day that authentic humility is supernatural and basis for all virtues. Talk to our lady so that she may train us to walk along the path of humility.”
Let me close with a final minor point that I came across that when we look closely at the roots of the word of humility we learn that it is derived from the Latin “Humus”. H-U-M-U-S. Which means earth, soil, dirt.
Also, humility signifies recognition of our human origin in the dust of which Adam was made. From the dirt. The virtue of humility therefore consists in the living out of a realistic appraisal of our comparative insignificance as creatures who are totally dependent on God.
To conclude then, humility leads us to discover that everything we have that is good comes from God. It’s on loan to us. Both in the order of nature and in the order of grace all on loan to us on this earth.
Let us then turn our eyes to Mary. No creature ever surrendered herself to the plans of God more humbly than she, the Handmaid of the Lord.
So, I close with a prayer for your reflection on Jesus and Mary.
Lord Jesus, You became the servant for my sake to set me free from tyranny of sin, selfishness and conceit. Help me to be humble as You are humble and to love freely and graciously all whom You call me to serve with Your guidance and courage and with the help of our Heavenly Mother.
Amen.
