No disciple greater than his master

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

FOR as long as we are true disciples of Christ, we cannot aspire to be greater than Christ, our master. Obviously, among ourselves, it is highly possible that a disciple or even a servant can in time outrank his leader and master, as can easily be verified especially these days.

Thus, Christ said, “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master.” (Mt 10,24) In this particular instance, what he was trying to tell us is that we ought to be most faithful to him and to be fully trusting of his will and ways, irrespective of how things go in our life here on earth.

We have to be wary of our tendency to easily fall into pride, vanity and conceit whenever we enjoy special status in our life here on earth. We should strengthen and continue reinforcing our conviction that we are actually nothing without God and that we need to continually keep an intimate relationship with Christ in the Holy Spirit.

We have to make some readjustments in our understanding of being a disciple of Christ. It should not be pegged only on some worldly and temporal standards. Rather, it should be understood in the context of the role of Christ in our life, he who is the “way, truth and life” for us.

To be sure, understanding our being disciples of Christ that way would never be regarded as some kind of downgrading our status. Rather, it would lead us to realize that we are achieving the fullness of our dignity as the “image and likeness” of God, children of his, meant to share in God’s very own life that is supernatural.

We just have to be most trusting of God’s will and ways, of his ever wise and omnipotent providence. That way we avoid falling into unnecessary fears and worries. We all know that our life always has more to offer to us than what we can understand, let alone, cope. And they can come in all shapes and sizes, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, likeable and hateful. There are surprises and moments when we seem to rot in expectation and still things we long for don’t come.

In the face of all this, I believe the attitude to have and the reaction to make is to be calm, pray hard, and while we do all we can, we have to learn to live a certain sense of abandonment in the hands of God.

With all the things that we have to contend with in this life, we certainly need to have a healthy sense of trust in God’s loving and wise providence, abandoning ourselves in his will and ways that often are mysterious to us and can appear to be contrary to what we would like to have.

A healthy spirit of abandonment in God’s hands is necessary even as we exhaust all possible human means to achieve our goals or simply to tackle all the challenges, trials and predicaments of our life. We should never forget this truth of our faith.

In those situations, I believe we just have to allow ourselves to play in God’s game plan, in his abiding providence whose designs are beyond reckoning, are way beyond comprehension and appreciation. In this life, we need to acquire a good, healthy sporting spirit.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com