The greatest among you must behave as if he were the youngest,
the leader as if he were the one who serves.
The Christian paradigm about leadership, even tough we are accustom to hear it, is always something that hard to live out. How can we be the greatest if we are the lowly and little one? It contradicts the worldly understanding about being outstanding and the perfect one. But, if we look to our patron today, St. Gregory (540-604), we may find some answers.
He was a prefect of Rome when he renounced the world and entered a monastery. Although he was ordained as a deacon, but later on he stepped to the papacy throne in 590. He was willing emptied the papal treasury in order to ransom prisoners of the Lombards when they attacked Rome. He was doing the same when the city broke down by plague and famine. Here we saw a man of God whose willing to sacrifice his preferences for God’s will. He did what St. Paul said in today’s reading, “for it is not ourselves that we are preaching, but Christ Jesus as the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
However, still we find difficulties to know how to give up our preferences and become humble enough to let the Lord engaged in our life. In centuries afterward, during the middle ages era, we found religious people were not as pious as St. Gregory. Many clergies stepped in the church hierarchy with motivation to gain wealth and glory of themselves. St. Gregory had words about it. In one of his writing, “Homilies on the Gospels”, he wrote, “Perhaps it is not after all so difficult for a man to part with his possessions, but it is certainly most difficult for him to part with himself. To renounce what one has is a minor thing; but to renounce what one is, that is asking a lot.”
Although, we may not find the same condition to church today, it is worth for us, learning from the piety of our saint, that we reflect to our everyday action and ask what motivate us to do so. Very often it is easy to cover our own need with “good act” as if we are doing good things, but, the more we did it, we would find ourselves dying since we just sold our soul to the world.
Let us ask grace that as the earthen vessels, we may hold the treasure that has been given by God to ourselves and dedicate it only for his glory.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: dailyreflection, saints of the day, saints & patron, catholicism
