will come and say to you, ‘Please give this person your place.’ What shame is yours when you take the lowest seat!
Whenever you are invited, go rather to the lowest seat, so that your host may come and say to you,
‘Friend, you must come up higher.’ And this will be a great honor for you in the presence of all the other guests.
For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

REFLECTION:
St. Paul in our first reading confesses to the Philippians that he is torn between desiring to live and being ready to die.
For St. Paul, dying was the better portion as it would mean his entering into the presence of the Lord.
His burning love for the Lord was dri­ving him to embrace death. On the other hand, consi­dering the Philippians
who desired to see him again and to have him again in their midst, made St. Paul equally desirous to continue living.
But whether one be alive or dead, however, what matters is that one is IN CHRIST! St. Paul wanted the Philippians
to become alive in Christ, to live life according to the Gospel. Life lived in accord with the Gospel makes one ready
to live again after death. There is life after death, or better still, there is LIFE after life! The true LIFE is the
eternal life Christ gives to those who have loved as Christ has loved.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2020