Every good gift we have comes from God.  Life itself is a gift and the life that is full of the love of God and which overflows into kindness to others is a sign of the Lord’s presence in the world.  If we want, we can participate in this by accepting the personal love of the Father for each of us and by sharing kindness with the people around us.  To live in thankfulness is to live in proper humility.  There can be no reason for us to make our importance felt by lording it over others because all that we have is a free gift that has been designed to be shared with those about us.  As we read in Ecclesiastes: “The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly, and then you will find favour with the Lord; for great though the power of the Lord is, he accepts the homage of the humble.”

We must, however, be on our guard against false humility.  This is the sort of attitude, which has us saying things to ourselves like, “I’m no good,” or “I’m not worthy.”  It is the reason, perhaps, why people cluster together at the back of church for mass: they don’t want to push themselves forward and look as if they think themselves overly important.  But everybody is important.  That is the reason why we are asked to treat people with love and respect.  God our Father loves everybody with the same immense love: when he looks at a Christian he sees the face of Jesus.  So it is wrong of us to “do ourselves down” precisely because God has spent so much time in raising us up.

Yes, we are sinners.  Yes, we are mortal.  But we are redeemed sinners and we are mortals with the gift of immortality won for us by Christ.  Perhaps another more palatable word for “humility” would be “trust.”  Surely we can trust the love of the God who saves us?  Surely we can see that boasting and pride are rubbish?  And surely, we can understand that if God values us so much, we have no right to undervalue ourselves?  The trust in the love of God that allows us to feel happy with the love and forgiveness we receive leads us to thanksgiving.  And this is the free and joyful sacrifice of praise that is always acceptable to our Father in Heaven.