http://www.dailycatholic.org/10penhay.htm

 The Essence of Humility

    Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Comprehensive Catholic Commentary
by
Fr. George Leo Haydock
provided by
John Gregory

        Editor's Note: We continue with this special feature provided by John Gregory with the Haydock Commentary found at the bottom of each page of the Douay-Rheims Bible. We publish it here in conjunction with the Epistle and Gospel for the Sunday Mass, with the cogent comprehensive Catholic Commentary penned by Father George Leo Haydock. For the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost we have as the theme man's pride and forgetting who he really is for without God he is nothing. St. Paul bears this out in his Epistle to the Corinthians in warning that the spirit (Holy Ghost) cannot deceive, knows all and knows which gifts to bestow. Likewise in the Gospel God knows man's heart and though he might act humble, he who strives to be exalted will be humbled, but he who credits God for whatever he has, be they gifts or crosses, will be exalted by God. After all, that's really all that matters.


Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12: 2-11

2 You know that when you were heathens, you went to dumb idols, according as you were led.

    Commentary on Verse 2 You went to dumb idols. He speaks to the Gentiles before their conversion, to put them in mind, how much happier they are by receiving the faith of Christ, and such graces and favors from God. (Wi.)

3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith Anathema to Jesus. And no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost.

    Commentary on Verse 3 No man, speaking by the Spirit of God, & c. He tells them, if they see a person moved in an extraordinary manner, and say anathema, curse, or speak ill of Jesus, such an one cannot be moved by a good spirit. And no man can say, the Lord Jesus, that is, praise Christ as he ought, but by a good spirit. (Wi.)

4 Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit;

5 And there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord;

6 And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, Who worketh all in all.

7 And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto profit.

    Commentary on Verse 4-7 There are diversities of grace. Literally, divisions of grace; but all from the same spirit, from the same Lord, from the same God: and all these gifts are designed, and to be made use of for the profit of the faithful. (Wi.) – Saint Justin Martyr, Saint Irenaeus, and Origen bear testimony, that these special gifts of the Holy Ghost were not unusual in their time. Saint Paul, in order to curb the vanity of such as seemed to be a little puffed up with the gifts they had received, and likewise to comfort those who had received no such spiritual and extraordinary favors, wishes to teach both parties, that the same Holy Spirit distributes these graces according as they are more conducive to the welfare of His Church, and the glory of God. (Calmet)

8 To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom: and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit;

    Commentary on Verse 8 Word of wisdom, which differs from that of knowledge, inasmuch as wisdom is a more eminent and sublime knowledge. These are numbered among the gifts of the Holy Ghost. (Isaias chapter 11) – To another faith, by which, says Saint Chrysostom, is not here meant a belief of revealed truths, but an humble confidence of working miracles, grounded on faith, and on the power and goodness of God. – The same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He will; by which words, they that valued themselves on the gifts of prophesying, and speaking tongues, are put in mind, that all these were purely the gifts of God, to Whom alone the honor is due. (Wi.)

9 To another, faith in the same spirit; to another, the grace of healing in one Spirit;

10 To another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to another, diverse kinds of tongues; to another, interpretation of speeches.

11 But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He will.


Gospel: St. Luke 18: 9-14

9 And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, He spoke also this parable:

    Commentary on Verse 9 In this chapter we have three examples of prayer: one of the persevering widow; another of the poor publican, who solicits the divine mercy by the acknowledgment of his crimes; and the third of the proud Pharisee, who only goes to the temple to pronounce his own panegyric, and enter upon a accusation of his humble neighbor, whose heart is unknown to him. (Calmet)

10 0 Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

11 The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican.

    Commentary on Verse 11 The Pharisee standing. The Greek is, standing by himself, i.e. separated from the rest. Some understand this term, standing, as if in opposition to kneeling or prostrating, which they suppose to be the general posture in which the Jєωs offered up their prayers, and that of the humble publican. The Christians borrowed this practice from them. We see the apostles and disciples praying on their knees: Acts 7: 59, 9: 40, 20: 36. In the Old Testament, we see the same observed. Solomon, (3 Kings 8: 54) Daniel, (6: 10) and Micheas, (6: 6) prayed in that posture. Others however, think that the people generally prayed standing, as there were neither benches nor chairs in the temple. (Calmet) – There are four ways by which men are guilty of pride: 1st, By thinking they have any good from themselves; 2nd, by thinking that though they have received it from above, it was given them as due to their own merits; 3rd, by boasting of the good they do not possess; and fourthly, by desiring to be thought the only persons that possess the good qualities of which they thus pride themselves. The pride of the Pharisee seems to have consisted in attributing to himself alone the qualities of which he boasted. (Saint Gregory, mor. l. 23, c. 4.) – He who is guilty of publicly speaking against his neighbor, is likewise the cause of much damage to himself and others. 1st, He injures the hearer; because if he be a sinner, he rejoices to find an accomplice; if he be just, he is tempted to vanity, seeing himself exempt from the crimes with which others are charged. 2nd, He injures the Church, by exposing it to be insulted for the defects of its members. 3rd, He causes the name of God to be blasphemed; for, as God is glorified by our good actions, so is He dishonored by sin. 4th, He renders himself guilty, by disclosing that which it was his duty not to have mentioned. (Saint Chrysostom, Sermon on the Pharisee et Pub.)

12 I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.

    Commentary on Verse 12 See how the Pharisee here, by pride, lays open to the enemy his heart, which he had in vain shut against him by fasting and prayer. It is in vain to defend a city, if you leave the enemy a single passage, by which he may enter in. (Saint Gregory, mor. l. 19. c. 12)

13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner.

14 I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.

    Commentary on Verse 14 If any one should ask why the Pharisee is here condemned for speaking some few words in his own commendation, and why the like sentence was not passed on Job, who praised himself much more; the difference is evident: the former praised himself without any necessity, merely with an intention of indulging his vanity, and extolling himself over the poor publican; the latter, being overwhelmed with misery, and upbraided by his friends, as if, forsaken of God, he suffered his present distress in punishment of his crimes, justifies himself by recounting his virtues for the greater glory of God, and to preserve himself and others in the steady practice of virtue, under similar temptations. (Theophylactus)

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2021.htm#article1

Article 1. Whether a human action is right or sinful, in so far as it is good or evil?

Objection 1. It seems that a human action is not right or sinful, in so far as it is good or evil. For "monsters are the sins of nature" (Phys. ii, 8). But monsters are not actions, but things engendered outside the order of nature. Now things that are produced according to art and reason imitate those that are produced according to nature (Phys. ii, 8). Therefore an action is not sinful by reason of its being inordinate and evil.

Objection 2. Further, sin, as stated in Phys. ii, 8 occurs in nature and art, when the end intended by nature or art is not attained. But the goodness or malice of a human action depends, before all, on the intention of the end, and on its achievement. Therefore it seems that the malice of an action does not make it sinful.

Objection 3. Further, if the malice of an action makes it sinful, it follows that wherever there is evil, there is sin. But this is false: since punishment is not a sin, although it is an evil. Therefore an action is not sinful by reason of its being evil.

On the contrary, As shown above (Question 19, Article 4), the goodness of a human action depends principally on the Eternal Law: and consequently its malice consists in its being in disaccord with the Eternal Law. But this is the very nature of sin; for Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 27) that "sin is a word, deed, or desire, in opposition to the Eternal Law." Therefore a human action is sinful by reason of its being evil.

I answer that, Evil is more comprehensive than sin, as also is good than right. For every privation of good, in whatever subject, is an evil: whereas sin consists properly in an action done for a certain end, and lacking due order to that end. Now the due order to an end is measured by some rule. In things that act according to nature, this rule is the natural force that inclines them to that end. When therefore an action proceeds from a natural force, in accord with the natural inclination to an end, then the action is said to be right: since the mean does not exceed its limits, viz. the action does not swerve from the order of its active principle to the end. But when an action strays from this rectitude, it comes under the notion of sin.

Now in those things that are done by the will, the proximate rule is the human reason, while the supreme rule is the Eternal Law. When, therefore, a human action tends to the end, according to the order of reason and of the Eternal Law, then that action is right: but when it turns aside from that rectitude, then it is said to be a sin. Now it is evident from what has been said (19, 3,4) that every voluntary action that turns aside from the order of reason and of the Eternal Law, is evil, and that every good action is in accord with reason and the Eternal Law. Hence it follows that a human action is right or sinful by reason of its being good or evil.

Reply to Objection 1. Monsters are called sins, inasmuch as they result from a sin in nature's action.

Reply to Objection 2. The end is twofold; the last end, and the proximate end. In the sin of nature, the action does indeed fail in respect of the last end, which is the perfection of the thing generated; but it does not fail in respect of any proximate end whatever; since when nature works it forms something. In like manner, the sin of the will always fails as regards the last end intended, because no voluntary evil action can be ordained to happiness, which is the last end: and yet it does not fail in respect of some proximate end: intended and achieved by the will. Wherefore also, since the very intention of this end is ordained to the last end, this same intention may be right or sinful.

Reply to Objection 3. Each thing is ordained to its end by its action: and therefore sin, which consists in straying from the order to the end, consists properly in an action. On the other hand, punishment regards the person of the sinner, as was stated in the I, 48, 5, ad 4; 6, ad 3.