A call to be a faithful servant

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

“AMEN, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him….Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” (cfr. Jn 13-16-20)

These are words of Christ as narrated in the gospel for Thursday of the 4^th Week of Easter that for this year falls on May 12. These words are Christ’s call for us to be his most faithful servant and messengers.

We have to understand that only with him and in him can we be so faithful a servant and messenger that anyone who would receive us automatically receive Christ and the one who sent Christ to us, God the Father.

As a consequence, we can only be faithful to Christ if we continually look for him and trust in the working of divine providence. This looking for Christ should be like an instinct, a constant behavior of ours. We have to look for him, so we can find him, and in finding him, we can start to love and serve him which is what we are expected to do to be ‘another Christ.’

This has basis on what Christ himself said: “Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you…” (Mt 7,7) We need to do our part in a relationship that is actually initiated by Christ himself. He loves us first before we can love him in return. (cfr. 1 Jn 4,19)

If we don’t yet have this habit of looking for Christ, then it’s time that we start cultivating it and making it a guiding, directing principle of our daily life. We have to exercise our faith, overcome the usual initial awkwardness that we experience, and continue finding ways and means to look for Christ in every moment of the day, especially in our work, and even in our rest.

“Come to me,” “Follow me,” are some of the open invitations Christ is giving us. He continues to issue such invitations. We should not be afraid to go to him and follow him. We have to discover the most wonderful reality that only in Christ can we have our true joy, our genuine peace, our ultimate solution to whatever problem we have.

To be faithful servants and messengers of Christ, we just have to be ready for wherever divine providence would take us. We have to be open to it all the time. Even as we make our plans and pursue them truly as our own, we should not forget that nothing in our life is actually outside the providence of God who can adapt himself to us, even in our worst situations and predicaments, and still lead us to himself.

The only thing to remember is that God is always around and is actually intervening and directing our life to him. That is part of his omnipotence which he exercises both from all eternity and in time since our creation and all the way to the end of time.

We should see to it that whatever we think, say or do, it is Christ who should be the principle, the substance and the end. That’s how true fidelity looks! Christ should the be-all and end-all of everything in our life. He should be the one that others see and hear from us!

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com