The Most Important Person in the World

Jesus teaches about the virtue of humility in His parable of the host and the dinner guests. Jesus first speaks of the guests, who were vying for places of honor at their host's table. Each guest doing so was attempting to honor himself, and in so doing was ranking himself above a number of the other guests. In Jesus' parable, the host had a different ranking order in mind than the self-seeking guest, whence the guest suffered acute embarrassment when asked to move to a place of lesser honor.

After this, Jesus does not present a parable, but states directly that the host should invite guests who are not capable of paying back to him his hospitality, so that the honor that the host seeks would come from God, not men.

For the guests and for the host, Jesus teaches the lesson of humility. What is humility? Does it mean self-abasement? From the proud man's point of view, it appears to be just that. But humility is essentially the virtue of recognizing the truth about ourselves as God sees us.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that humility consists in understanding that we owe all we are to God, and that, in the measure we are good, the merit is to be attributed to Him. [The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Etienne Gilson, p.300]

In the fifth century, Attila the Hun invaded the Italian peninsula and threatened the city of Rome. Pope St. Leo the Great met Attila just outside the gates of Rome. When Attila demanded to know who he was, he replied, "I am Leo, the servant of the servants of God". In so describing himself, he was exercising the humility of Church leaders commanded by Our Lord, who said:

[Mat 20:26] ...whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
[Mat 20:27] whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.

In fact, in Leo's response, servus servorum Dei, servus is best translated into English as "slave", since there is another Latin word (famulus) which translates as "servant".
History notes that Leo, through his great eloquence, persuaded Attila to turn around and go back where he had come from, and Rome was spared.

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In the year 257, the Roman emperor Valerian commanded that all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons in Rome be put to death. In the following year, while Pope St. Sixtus was being led off to his execution, his deacon St. Lawrence followed him in tears. Sixtus commanded Lawrence to sell the wealth of the church and distribute the proceeds to the poor...the church had been maintaining about 1500 of the poor. Lawrence complied, and soon afterwards the Prefect of Rome, acting under the emperor's edict of persecution, ordered Lawrence to bring to him the treasures of the church. Three days later, Lawrence exhibited to the prefect not gold and silver, but a number of the poor. This so infuriated the prefect, that he commanded that Lawrence be roasted on the gridiron. Lawrence was so encouraged by the Holy Spirit, that he was able to jest with his tormentors while he was dying. To the end, he prayed for the conversion of Rome. Several of the Roman Senators who had witnessed his execution, afterwards converted to Christianity and gave a decent burial to Lawrence's body.

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In His parable, Our Lord stated that the host should invite the poor and the needy, who could not repay, whence the host would receive his repayment from God. In this way, the guests would be of immeasurably more value to the host than had he invited the wealthy and influential. Thus, Our Lord was saying that the host should perceive the way God ranked men. This is what St. Lawrence did: he perceived men as the way God ranked them, not as the way other men ranked them.

Each of us has associated with him a group of people which consists of all persons whom he has encountered throughout his lifetime. Here, too, the way we view these people in terms of a ranking can differ considerably from the way God ranks them. In the mind of God, there indeed is a ranking of persons in that group which is unique to each of us. This ranking leads to one of these persons as being singled out as the most important. That is, for each of us from God's perspective, there is a most important person in the world.

Here too, our idea of who is most important can differ significantly from that person whom God regards as most important. In fact, this person is of supreme importance, for indeed, our very salvation is intimately related to this person.

Who then, in the mind of God for me is the most important person in the world? Is it the person I love the most?

The most important person in the world is the person I love the least.

The reason that this person is the most important person in the world is that I cannot love God any more than I love that person.

[1 John 4:20] ...whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

[1 John 2:9] Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness.
[1 John 2:10] Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.
[1 John 2:11] Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

[1 John 3:15] Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.

A saint records that while she was having a colloquy with Our Lord, she complained about a difficult person in her life.
The Lord said that she should especially cherish that person. The saint asked, "Why?"
The Lord said, "Because you can do something with that person that you could not possibly do with me."
"But Lord, what could that possibly be?"
To which the Lord responded, "You can love that person without expecting any love in return."
[That is to say: you can love that person with a perfect Christ-love.]

Every day of our lives we should offer intecessory prayer for "the most important person in the world", whether that person is still alive or else has passed into eternal life.