Make Jesus Bigger

31 August 2025  Luke 14:1, 7-14

“For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  Luke 14:11

What does a humble response to the shooting of Catholic schoolchildren in Minneapolis look like?

Some seem to think that it sounds like this: “My thoughts and prayers are with you.” There is a lot of pushback against such a response today. Many think it sounds weak and insincere. That’s because it is. So much of the time it comes from people who have no intention of either thinking or praying. It is saying something merely to keep from saying nothing.

Perhaps if we are serious about thoughts and prayers we should actually think.

Think what it would have taken for the Minneapolis shooter to be less filled with hate. Think what it would have taken for him to be less diseased in his thinking so that he didn’t exalt killing children, and praise mass murderers. Think what it would take to persuade people to tame their rhetoric so that mentally unbalanced people won’t think that they can kill their way out of their problems. Think what it would take to heal division rather than just exploit it for the benefit of your own side.

If you think hard and honestly enough, your thinking will take you to Jesus. If you think hard and honestly enough, you might consider that, assuming Jesus is not a howling lunatic or a pathological liar, He just might be exactly who He says He is – the terror of demons and the Savior of the world. If you think hard and honestly enough, you might consider that Jesus the healer, Jesus the Savior might be the solution to the problem of children being slain at Mass.

The problem, of course, is that too many people don’t want to think that big. They want a solution that doesn’t require that they actually change their minds about anything. They want a solution that doesn’t require conversion. They complain about “thoughts and prayers” because Jesus is one of the solutions they don’t want to think about. They don’t want to think about how secularity and scorn for religion is part of the problem.

“My thoughts and prayers are with you” is a weak and insincere response to horrific tragedy if you are unwilling to think big enough, to the point of conversion. It is a weak and insincere response if you are unwilling to consider Jesus.

Humility is not about making ourselves small and insignificant. Denial of self and contempt of self are not the same thing. Humility is about making Jesus bigger. The day after the shooting in Minneapolis attendance at Mass went up. It was a good and true instinct to go to Mass. Determined reception of the life of Christ in the face of unvarnished evil is part of the solution. Two days after the shooting in Minneapolis, Mass attendance was back down again. That’s part of the problem. Christians who are thinking and praying should be at Mass more, much more. We need to make Jesus bigger consistently.

People who have never considered Jesus in the face of unvarnished evil are simply being dishonest. There is ample reason to consider that Jesus still has power to cast out demons and unsnarl the most distorted thinking. The millions of testimonies over more than twenty centuries are a body of evidence that cannot be honestly ignored. Non-believers need to think about making Jesus bigger, too.

Humility is about making Jesus bigger. We make Jesus bigger by thinking and praying about Him. Demons still howl and flee when Jesus is bigger in us, bigger than our concern for self.

Make Jesus bigger. That is what a humble response to horrible tragedy looks like.