Who do you work for?

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."

The last shall be first. The great shall be a servant. Whoever wishes to be first will be your slave.  These are sayings of Jesus that we do not always remember.   Let me point out that those who are in charge of the Church have titles and are called respectful names such as, "eminence" or "your excellency" or in the case of the pope, "your holiness."  What we call these men are titles of human respect that reflect the office that they occupy.  How they occupy the office and what it is they do is more important than the title.  Some of the leaders of the Church have accumulated for themselves great wealth. And the key word here is "themselves."  A true leader in the Catholic Church is a man that has the title but works hard at proving the title does not mean anything special.  Pope Francis is one such person. He has the title but lives without a lot of the pomp and circumstance that his predecessors have taken as their due.  He has also told those that work under them that they should not build great houses for themselves but rather they should tend to their jobs as shepherds of the poor, the meek, the humble.

So it is for us. We may occupy positions in the world that give us certain rights over others.  With these rights come obligations. In our everyday work, we should take care of what we need to take care of but we should also be willing to serve those we are in charge of.  We may occupy positions where the only direction to look is up.  We may be at the bottom of the food chain and having to do the bidding of everyone else but we too are called upon to be humble and meek and to do what we are called on to do to the best of our ability.  For, in the long run, we do not do our work for our boss, or our company, or the people that buy the products we make.  We work and share in the creation that God began so long ago in the Garden of Eden.  God is the ultimate boss we need to answer to and his evaluation of our performance in this world will have consequences that reach into eternity and that, my friend, is a long, long time. 

Please remember the poor souls in Purgatory today.