Saturday, October 20, 2012


OT XXIX [B]IS 53: 10-11; HEB 4: 14-16; MK 10: 35-45

Today’s gospel teaches us that true happiness comes from surrendering ourselves completely in humble service to God through Christ. The CEO in Jesus’ kingdom is the one who serves the needs of all the others. For Jesus, true service means putting our gifts at the disposal of others.

The request of James and John revealed their lack of understanding of true leadership. They were looking for positions of power and prestige. They thought that leadership came from where you sat rather than how you served.
Now a days there is an over emphasis on our actions which leads us to prize our jobs. People are proud of being a manager, a supervisor, a boss, a director. And it is overused precisely because rank and status are confused with our identity, and because they are prized. The mistake is to think that important jobs make us important people. They do not. Nor does the lack of such importance make us unimportant. The mistake is to believe that one is either a somebody or one is a nobody.
But what do success and failure mean? It does not mean to be head of the pack. Success is not measured by comparing one's achievements against the achievements of one's "competitors."
Alexander Woolcott, one of the most famous alumni of Hamilton College, New York, was asked to give a major address at the college's centennial celebration. Woolcott gave a memorable speech which began with these words: "I send my greetings today to all my fellow alumni of Hamilton College, scattered all over the world. Some of you are successes, and some of you are failures - only God knows which are which!" This is a wonderful reminder to us that in our measurement of success and failure, "God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God's ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways, and God's thoughts than our thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).

For Jesus success means people realizing and fulfilling God's dream for them. Jesus tells us, contrary to popular thinking, that anybody cannot be anything. Before people come into this world, divine providence has already crafted a dream for each person to live out. We do not come into life to write our own job description, we come with a divine job description in our hands and with the physical and mental traits necessary to get the job done. God has an intended destination for which He created you and me. But whether you and I attain this destination or not depends on how we cooperate with God's grace. To say that whatever people are or do in life is what God created them to be and do is determinism. The Bible teaches predestination (God has something in mind for creating you and me) but does not teach determinism (whatever we are or do is what God has predestined for us). God gives us free will to cooperate with divine grace or not. That is why, even though God predestined Mary to be the mother of our Savior, when the time came for her to accomplish this mission, God sent an angel to seek her cooperation. She is a perfect example of success because she courageously said yes to the word of God detailing to her what Providence has in store for her.

Greatness consisted, not  in reducing other men to  one's service, but in reducing oneself to their service. Such people are considered great. Hannibal Barca was a military commander of the Carthage army in 247 BC. He led a famous campaign in the second Punic War against the Roman army, remaining undefeated until the very gates of Rome. What was the secret of his success.  He was a man who led by example. He would sleep among his soldiers and would not wear anything that made him distinct above his soldiers. He would lead the armies into battle and be the last to leave the battlefield. Even today he stands as a model for leadership.

Jesus told his disciples plainly what his mission was, how he was going to accomplish it and what should be the criteria of greatness among his disciples. He summarized his mission in one sentence: "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." According to Jesus, greatness consists not in what we have, nor in what we can get from others but in what we give to others. Jesus thus overturned all our values, teaching us that true greatness consists in loving, humble, and sacrificial service. For Jesus, true service means putting our gifts at the disposal of others. For our contemporaries Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa, greatness lay in the giving of their whole self to the very lowest, treating them as brothers and sisters and living close to them.

The best place to begin the process of ―self-giving," is in our own homes and in the workplace.  We have to look upon our education, training, and experience as preparation for service to others. All of us feel comfortable serving who are rich, strong, handsome or beautiful. But to serve the poor, weak and unattractive is a challenge. When are we weak and unattractive, and unable to defend ourselves ?…it is at both ends of our life- in embryo and old age, at near death. A government that ignores human beings at these two stages of life is not a civilized government, it is barbaric. Make sure you do not vote to power a government that promotes to legislate to terminate the “useless” stages of life. Remember we all will have a useless stage in our life, when we won’t be able to stand for what our rights. Let’s defend the voiceless. Mother Teresa says: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” This country has shown its abject poverty by legalizing abortion. And now is trying to force the Catholics who believe in the sanctity of life to help contribute to abortion. We have to stand up for what we believe. I would urge you to read at least once the faithful citizenship link published on our parish website before you go to vote. A good number of Catholics do not know what the official Church’s position is. When we go by what the Church teaches we are sure of not making mistakes. But when we believe different from what the Church teaches we are on our own to find out what is good and evil, the responsibility will be our own before God for choosing the wrong. As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.
Choosing to vote for a candidate who wants to promote what is intrinsic evil makes you complicit in his actions and the inexorable consequences. Last weekend when I preached about avoiding choosing the candidates who stand for something that is intrinsic evil and mentioned abortion, some friends of mine told me father, I believe what you said. I personally believe abortion is intrinsic wrong. But I don’t like you preach that from the pulpit. I have one answer to them. When I was ordained, the bishop took the gospel and set it before me and said, receive the gospel of Christ, believe what you read, preach what you believe. The bible doesn’t expressly say abortion is wrong. But it says God knit me in my mother’s womb. When you start putting two threads together you say you started knitting. When you start a single thread you don’t usually say that. And so I believe life begins at conception and this is what the Church teaches too. So I am duty bound to do that. I am sorry.

As Christians we have only one way to follow: the way of Christ. Let’s believe and practice what we believe. Let’s not say like some politicians I believe it, but I don’t want to impose it on others. Ok, don’t impose it on others, practice it yourself. And don’t try to propagate what you really yourself don’t believe. When I don’t propagate what I really myself believe, and am encouraging the wrong things to spread. Let’s pray that all of us here may have the mind and heart to serve the weak and become great before God.

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