Glorifying Ourselves?
May
6
Written by:
Sunday, May 06, 2007
5th Sunday of Easter
May 6, 2007
It is interesting to watch people who are in the entertainment industry. When they are about to launch a new movie, for example, they do just about everything they can to get attention: granting interviews, getting publicity, wearing eye-catching clothes, getting themselves noticed. In effect, they are glorifying themselves and hoping others will pay attention.
All of us, of course, enjoy being complimented and noticed. However, it is always better to have someone else point out how good we are than to tell everyone ourselves! Someone who goes around bragging and tooting their own horn is not usually thought very well of.
This is the point that Jesus is making in today's gospel, when he says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13:31). Here, Jesus is giving us an insight into the Trinity: no one in heaven glorifies themselves. The Father glorifies the Son and the Spirit, the Spirit glorifies the Father and the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father and the Spirit.
The second reading from Revelation 21 is a description of heaven. Heaven is a place where no one glorifies themselves. There are no "horn-tooters" there! In heaven, we will glorify God and God will glorify us. That's just how things are in eternity. We will no longer have any need or desire to impress others, to try to look good or to care what people think about us.
Am I trying to impress someone in my life? The boss, a friend, a neighbor, people in general? There is actually only One Person we should be trying to glorify, and that is the Lord. We do that by paying attention to the little ways we can keep his commandments each day. We glorify God by the words that we say (and don't say), by our actions, and by our faith in him.
The truth is, most people are too busy thinking about themselves to be even remotely interested in the impression we are trying to make. To really impress others, of course, requires that we be interested in them, think of them first, listening to them and caring about them. That will impress them. Funny, that's just how God is impressed, too.
Father Gary