Gospel: Matthew 20:20-28
The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus
with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to
her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine
sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.” Jesus said
in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that
I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you
will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to
give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” When the ten
heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them
and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the
great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among
you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever
wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did
not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
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Reflection:
Do you love to be infront, do you love prominence
and do you love to always be in the starring role?
Prominence or to be with someone influential is
something that we all want. For example, we love to post pictures on facebook
and other social media portals the places that we’ve visited.
We love to post pictures of these beautiful places. This is perhaps human nature, who wouldn’t want to post
pictures of nice and idyllic places? We all want it, but the essence of
life is not about advertising the famous places that we’ve visited or the
famous personalities that we’ve been seen with.
The true essence of life is to serve anyone who is
need of our help. It doesn’t matter anymore if the acts of service and
compassion that we do are seen or not what is important is we’re able to help.
As we follow Jesus let us always be reminded that HE never walked in this world
to gain publicity and prominence.
Jesus walked on this world to serve and not be
served, HE never aspired to become famous. All He wanted was to simply follow
the will of God for HIM no matter how difficult it was. This must also be our
guiding principle.
Many are attracted
to serve in the church not because they want to help advance the teachings of
Jesus. Their attraction comes from what the church could give or what they
could derive from the church and Jesus if they would serve. But we all
know that this kind of motive is built upon a person’s self-image and therefore
useless.
True service in the
vineyard of the Lord is all about humility. Not thinking of what we can derive
from the church, but what we can humbly give to God and His church. True
service for the church is not about having power and influence it’s actually
based on losing power and influence for the greater glory of God.
Obviously, the
mother in our gospel for today and many of us too are still not aware of this.
– Marino J. Dasmarinas
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