Robert Coles, the psychiatrist, writes a lot of books, teaches at Harvard. He wrote a book about Dorothy Day. In the book there is this anecdote. Dorothy Day, as you know, is that famous Catholic social worker, the founder of the Catholic Worker. When Coles was a medical student at Harvard, he volunteered to work at the Catholic Worker. He was a Harvard graduate. He was in medical school. He was going to be a psychiatrist. In this society, that is about as high a status as you can get. He knew that. He was really proud of it. He was also proud that as this person with all these credentials, he was volunteering to help the poor. It was the kind of thing people would sit up and take notice of.

He arrived at the premises of the Catholic Worker. He asked to see Dorothy Day. He went right to the top. The person said that she was in the kitchen. He went into the kitchen, saw her sitting at a table, talking to someone. He had enough medical training to recognize that the man that she was talking to was addicted to some dangerous substance. He was disheveled. He was obviously a homeless street person. She was sitting at table with him, listening intently to what he had to say. Now I want you to have in mind Jesus' parable of the banquet and the seats at the table, and where you are supposed to be at that banquet.

She is at table with this street person, giving him her full attention. So she didn't notice Coles come in the room. He stood beside the door, waited for her to finish. When she finished the conversation she stood up. That is when she noticed Coles. She asked, "Do you want to speak to one of us?"

He was astounded. Dorothy Day was famous. This man with her was a nobody. He's a derelict. "You wanted to speak to one of us?" Coles had never seen anything like this before. Humility that can identify with another person so completely as to remove all distinctions between them. It cut through all of the boundaries, all the categories that society sets up to separate us from one another. There were just two people, brother and sister, the sister concerned about the brother.

It changed his life. He said he learned more in one moment than he did in four years at Harvard. He saw in one moment what it means to humble yourself as our Lord did, "who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, and took on the form of a servant."

For he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.