“Let no one look down on you” (Titus 2:15)
What we know of Titus comes mostly from his worth to St. Paul. He called Titus my trusted son. He meant by that Titus was initiated into the faith and maybe even baptized by the great apostle. When he was going up to Jerusalem, knowing he was distrusted for his former persecution of the Church, disliked and suspected by many of the Christians there, St Paul chose Titus as a companion. Titus was the sort of person who could handle a tough assignment, not make it worse, or just do nothing and wait for further instructions. He wasn’t a brilliant orator, but somebody who could make the best of a difficult situation. When St. Paul sent him to manage the rough people of Crete, it was a difficult assignment. Knowing the personality of Titus, the apostle realized that he wouldn’t blow them away with brilliant homilies, but rather show them what a Christian looked like and how one acted.
Because Titus was young, St. Paul insisted that he not allow the elders to look down on him and treat him as a naive youth. It’s the reason why so many of our young priests grow beards. They want to appear older than their years. Humility is a priceless virtue; but humiliation is an awful burden to carry about in the soul.
We all know the retort to the taunts of the schoolyard:
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!”
Even the kids who say it know it’s not true. Names hurt a whole lot. Skinny or fatty, four eyes or dummy—it’s not easy to shrug them off when we are young. Kids are cruel. Mostly, because they feel that by taunting others they deflect their own sense of inadequacy and project it elsewhere: Worse, of course, when the insult comes from an adult, and especially from one’s parent.
The horrid part is when one internalizes the label; bearing it about like some invisible sign that is so evident everybody knows what a failure we are. It doesn’t take much insight to recognize the signs of self-rejection all around us. The most obvious is the lowering of the eyes, hunkering down of shoulders, the demeanor that says to all that I’m really not someone you should expect much from. And they go like that into their coffins. Partial lives intimidated and reduced by the cruel and insensitive bullies of the world.
I think of that whenever I am given the honor of baptizing an infant. Plunging her or him into consecrated water and lifting the child up pure in soul, free of all earthly impediments, marking him with the seal of the Holy Spirit, I make a mental prayer that the child will be able to withstand all the slings and arrows of cruelty, mocking, abuse and even physical blows that this world will inflict on his body, mind and soul. I pray the child will be able to withstand and even overcome them by the prayers of his guardian angel, patron saint, pastor, parents, godparents and all who love him.
And what’s a Church for, if not to soothe the spiritual pains, sing away all the abuse, reach out with affection and embrace those wounded by the world outside its walls? Yes, of course we’re here to pray for our salvation and bond with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Holy Communion—but we are also committed to looking about ourselves and searching out those who have been hurt, humiliated, used and abused by the society they live in and must deal with. School kids have to come to terms with teachers and fellow students. They have no choice. Workers in offices and factories cannot quit, as the insensitive advise them when they have problems on the job. They need the income. The ones who live alone may no longer have a spouse or child to talk over their feelings. That’s what the Church is for—that’s why the Lord brings us together.