Gospel Meditations

Seeking to Serve Rather than be Served

In today’s second reading St. Paul offers us a radical way of living as Christians. He says that we should humbly, “regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” While this is a challenging way of life, it is at the very heart of being a steward.

To fully live with other people’s interests above our own we require a dramatic interior conversion. Our society propagates the importance of the unholy trinity of “me, myself and I”. In order to begin this conversion we need to turn to prayer and seek to imitate Jesus, the true steward. Jesus always sought to be a servant of others instead of demanding to be served. This was shown very poignantly when he washed the feet of the apostles. In this image, we see what it means to be a steward. To humble ourselves before others and seek their good before our own.

Imagine a parish community where everyone strives to serve their brothers and sisters. This service can be manifested in a variety of ways, whether it be simply going out of our way to say hello to a new family in the parish or supporting a family undergoing a major change or crises in their life. Let us constantly renew our commitment to being stewards and seek to serve rather than be served.

Summary

St. Paul challenges us to be true stewards as he says that we should “look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” In order to begin this conversion we need to turn to prayer as well as seek to imitate Jesus, who always sought to serve rather than be served. Let us strive to serve those in our parishes whether it be simply going out of our way to say hello to a new family or supporting a family undergoing a major change in their life, or any other way.

https://www.archtoronto.org/stewardship