438. Thirtieth Saturday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 388 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Our only ambition is to serve.

In the Gospel of today’s Mass we contemplate a scene described by St Luke. Jesus has been invited to dine in the house of a prominent person. There he sees the guests choosing the places of honour at table. He then tells the parable of a man who had to go from the first to the last place when a more important guest arrived unexpectedly. Our Lord concludes with a lesson: when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place … For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

The greatest desire of a soul striving to follow our Lord is to serve. This has been the Work’s aspiration from the start. If the Work were not of service to the Church, our Father declared, I would have no use for it! To serve the Church is our only ambition, so much so that we want to make St Paul’s words flesh of our flesh: mihi vivere Christus est, et mori lucrum; for our life is service to Christ and union with him, and for us death is gain.

It’s not easy to live like that. People normally want to shine, to be admired and occupy the top positions. The very idea of service may even be laughed at. Our Father put us on guard against this view: You don’t have an ounce of supernatural vision; you only notice the social standing of others. Souls mean nothing to you at all, nor do you serve them. That’s why you are not generous but live far from God with your false piety, even though you may pray a lot.

The Master has said very clearly: Depart from me… into that eternal fire… for I was hungry… I was thirsty… I was in prison… and you did not care for me.

Nevertheless, in such an environment we have to give Christian witness of glad and cheerful service. Without cheerfulness it’s impossible to serve. How would you like to be served by someone who was moaning and groaning? In our central house in Rome I’ve had engraved the words servite Domino in laetitia, serve the Lord with gladness!

Jesus urges us always to see ourselves as the servants of those around us. However much you may humble yourself, St John Chrysostom teaches, you will never be able to descend as low as your Lord did. Nevertheless, this self-abasement was the exaltation of all, and made the glory of the Lord shine forth. Before he became man, he was known only to the angels. But after becoming man, not only did that glory not diminish but another glory was added to it, when he became known all over the earth.

Do not fear, then, that in humbling yourself you will lose honour, for you will only increase it… Why are you ambitious for the first places? So as to be above the others? Then choose the last place, and you will obtain the first. If you want to be great, do not seek to be great, and then you will be great. For to do otherwise is to be small.

In the Work, every position is one of service.

In the Work there are no classes or categories, since we all have the same vocation to holiness, the same apostolic goal and ascetical means. In the Work there are no differences. Your brother may be a street-sweeper and be very holy in the sight of God and extraordinarily effective. Another may be a professor, a minister or even the president of a republic. If he is as much of a saint as the street-cleaner, he will have the same worth, neither more nor less. If he is less so, then his worth will certainly be less.

The sanctity and therefore the effectiveness of God’s children in the Work does not depend on the jobs we have but on the way we work, the love we put into them. In God’s service, there are no positions of little importance. All are of great importance. The importance of a position depends on the individual carrying it out. In the Work there are no first or last positions. They are all places of service. The person who obeys is serving God, the Church and the Work, and the one who governs is doing likewise. As our Father wrote: I have taught you from the beginning to consider internal jobs not as posts of honour or privilege, which they are not, but as further opportunities to serve. This is why we do not congratulate those who are given posts within the Work. To do so would go against our spirit. We think not of the position but of the burden, joyfully borne, which serving one’s brothers and sisters entails.

Those who govern and those who obey are united by the strength of the same love: congregavit nos in unum Christi amor, the love of Christ has brought us together into unity. Our Father advised those who for the time being hold positions of government: I think it is very good that you should try daily to deepen your concern for those under you, for to feel surrounded and protected by the affectionate understanding of the one in charge can be the effective help needed by the people you have to serve by means of your work of governance.

Wherever we are, our desire is always the same: we all want to serve and be useful to our mother the Work, for the good of souls. But we should not forget that the place where we are most effective is where the Major Directors have put us: that is God’s will. And that place, rather than another that might seem more suited to our dispositions and aptitudes, or perhaps our whims, is where the grace of God will help us most effectively.

Wherever we are, we can love God and do a lot of good.

Do everything for love, our Father urged us. Let us never grow weary of loving our God. We need to use every second of our poor life to serve all souls, doing so in the place we find ourselves. In the Work, there are no first or last places; those that seem last may be first in love for our Lord and dedication to others. Therefore we do not feel underrated if our task has little external glamour. Sanctity in the Work doesn’t consist of being great or small, our Father insisted. It consists of keeping our supernatural life enkindled, letting ourselves burn right down to the last ember, serving God in the last place, or in the first, wherever our Lord calls us. And in the end, we’ll all be equal, since we will have burnt ourselves completely, with the same spirit, cum odore suavitatis (with a sweet fragrance). Those who were great, by giving what they had. And the little ones, likewise. He who has much gives much, because much is demanded of him. And he who has little gives little, because less is demanded of him. But from both, what is demanded is everything.

We hear our Lord saying again: for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. St John Chrysostom comments: You see how the person who seeks to exalt himself falls precipitously? Why then run after someone who is nothing? Why seek honour from him? Why surround yourself with such a large crowd of people? Don’t you see how the proud man is low and involved in lowly things?

Let us then examine the humble man, who in reality is high … He is not the prisoner of any passion. Neither anger nor vainglory nor envy nor jealousy can trouble him. And what is more exalted than a soul free from these passions? The proud man, in contrast, is ruled by all of them, like a worm squirming in the mud. Jealousy, envy and anger constantly torment his soul. Who then is high, the one who is above his passions or the one who is their slave? The one who is afraid and trembles in front of them, or the one who is unassailable and can never become their slave?

We cannot be surprised, then, that those who are “ambitious”, with small, personal, miserable ambitions, cannot understand that the friends of God seek to achieve something through a spirit of service and without such “ambition”.

Our Blessed Lady, Ancilla Domini, Handmaid of the Lord, offers a shining example of humble and simple service. She will help us to do likewise in the place God has put us.