The One Most Worthy of Our Adoration

My wife said the other day to my two-year-old son, “You’re adorable, Sam.”

Then my son replied, “I’m not adorable. People adore Jesus.”

Those are words of wisdom and encouragement from the mouth of babes to a troubled world. 

In what way? 

There are a few reasons those words are so wise. First, they’re a reminder that, no matter how amazing we think something or someone is, nothing and no one is more worthy of our adoration than Jesus. Second, those words are a call to be humble, to deflect praise, and direct it where it belongs. In those six words, I see two of life’s most important lessons in a nutshell: humility is greater than hubris, and Christ alone takes the crown in the end; blessings come to those who put God first, while ruin comes to those who seek favor and praise from others.

When I was in college, I remember a homily by a priest named Fr. Stan. He talked about how he roots for a handful of sports teams. I don’t remember which. Maybe the Cowboys and Yankees. Let’s just go with those to prove my point, which is that–even when those teams were doing well, which was often–they also often lost in the end. The higher the team’s expectations for themselves, the greater their fall.  Fr. Stan soon learned that, despite how tempting it was to put his hope in his teams sometimes, they often did not pull through. So it was foolish to put his hope in them, except maybe to strengthen his hope muscle for the one thing–the one person–who is worthy of our hope.

The Everlasting Man

Because Christ always wins in the end and remains humble in doing so, people rightly adore him–as my son so aptly said in his own way. No one else is worthy of such great adoration. It may not seem that way, as almost everyone around you becomes swayed by partial truths, and devotes their lives to causes based on those partial truths. But the one kingdom that prevails, in the end, is God’s kingdom.

The underground Church in the catacombs of the Roman Empire emerged to be the greatest religion in the empire. French Gothic revival churches were erected not long after the French Revolution. The Catholic Church in Poland, after being suppressed by communism, emerged triumphant to give the world arguably the best pope of the 20th century, John Paul II. Anyone who knows Church history understands how this list of unlikely triumphs for Christ’s kingdom goes on.

In fact, it was often the darkest times in our history that gave way to the most impressive victories–and the most powerful witnesses to the faith. Sometimes the darkness from which it rose wasn’t even suppression, but self-inflicted wounds. Also, it has not only been shamed into a corner after the furious debate, but it has been hushed into irrelevance over generations of general disinterest. G.K. Chesterton elaborates on this theme:

“This is the final fact, and it is the most extraordinary of all…. The faith has not only often been killed but it has often died a natural death; in the sense of coming to a natural and necessary end. It’s obvious that it has survived the most savage and most universal persecutions from the shock of the Diocletian fury to the shock of the French Revolution. But it has a more strange and even more weird tenacity; it has survived not only war but peace. It has not only died often but degenerated often and decayed often; it has survived its own weakness and even its own surrender. It was supposed to have been withered up at last in the dry light of the Age of Reason; it was supposed to have disappeared ultimately in the earthquake of the Age of Revolution. Science explained it away; and it was still there. History disinterred it in the past; and it appeared suddenly in the future” (Chesterton, The Everlasting Man).

Forgotten Babylons

Anyone who notices this diehard nature of the Church can’t deny the truth in Christ’s words, “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Especially in our modern age, humanity has a tendency to favor that which decays and to abandon what has proved to last. We’re aware of the precariousness of temporal things, yet we adore them anyway. Meanwhile, we acknowledge the durability of the Church, but more and more we seem to turn away from its values and the strong foundation that has enabled it to last so long. But what will last in the end? We know how the story goes. In complementary sonnets from 1818, poets Percy Shelley and Horace Smith wrote about the crumbled statue of Ozymandius–an ancient Egyptian ruler. The poems serve as a lasting portent to civilizations, or people, who erect displays of hubris, only to have them fall down eventually. Shelley’s poem goes:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Smith’s poem points to a similar irony of hubris: the fact that all the great world powers of today are subject to that same ephemerality, lest we forget:

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel comes to mind here as well: stark reminders of the axiom, “Pride comes before fall.” This is true for individuals and civilizations.

But not so for Christ’s kingdom. It continues to grow as if to say humility comes before exaltation. If any nation prevails, it is through the grace of God. The only hope a nation has for its values and legacy to survive is to put God before itself. All that have not have fallen or will eventually fall. Christ said “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11), and “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land (Matthew 5:5).

Adoration- Every Knee Shall Bow

Mary, after humbling herself and trusting God, said “[God] has looked upon his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed…. He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:48,51-52).

The value of being meek and humble is heralded by the Word of God. And yet, in our culture, confidence, positions of honor, and personal accomplishments seem to take precedent over humility.

Amid a world with backward values, humility is a reminder that in the end Christ and his Church always win. He could easily claim all of the prestigious titles and awards he wants, but he doesn’t. Instead:

“He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11).

He also humbled himself by becoming a piece of bread so we could have eternal life within us, and for this reason, he is adored in tabernacles throughout the world.

In Whom Our Faith Should Rest

In these uncertain times, we can know one thing for certain: If God is for us, who can be against us? If our nation puts its trust in God, it will do more than survive. It will prevail.

Let’s not just take courage in our faith, but stand by the truth that it professes. That is the only solution to any crisis. Jesus has the words of eternal life, and there really is nowhere else to turn when the world’s gone mad.

When we get caught up in the worries of the world escalated by the newsflashes and headlines we read, let’s not forget St. John the Baptist’s words, ‘” I must decrease. He must increase.” For, as Christ said in this Sunday’s Gospel, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:28-29). 

In all these instances in Scripture and throughout history, the humble say “don’t look at me. Look at him.” In doing so, they not only act in humility but also give the greatest advice one can receive because, in the end, it is Christ who wins anyway.

Through the ebb and flow of life, as our indecisive hearts sway back and forth trying to find the right directive, let’s remember the one truth that has rung true through the ages: It’s not about us, it’s about Christ.

In other words, “I’m not adorable. People adore Jesus.”