Meant to serve
"Serviam," I will serve, has been a favorite motto of many Popes and other ecclesiastics, as well as many other people, prominent and ordinary. It's taken from the Bible, and expresses a basic attitude we all ought to have.
I think that's still the breaking news many of us have yet to know. We are still uncomfortable, if not averse, to the idea, and if there's any serving that we do, it's most likely to serve our own self-interest, a caricature of how things ought to be.
In fact, to serve must really be an essential part of our nature, because Christ himself did and lived it, and then taught it to all of us. Our sin, first the original and then our own, have distorted and muffled this yearning to serve we actually have deep in our hearts.
But consider the following words and actions of our Lord:
- "The Son of Man came to serve, and not to be served, and to give his life as ransom for many." (Mt 20,28)
- "If any man desires to be first, he shall be the last of all, and the servant of all." (Lk 9,35)
- After washing the feet of his apostles in the Last Supper, he said: "If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also." (Jn 13,14-15)
There's no other way to interpret these words and actions of Christ. We need to understand that to serve is a necessity of our life, as persons and children of God. By refusing to serve, we violate our own selves.
Of course, to serve properly can only be done if the first and ultimate object is God, and because of God, others. Our Lord said: "No man can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and mammon." (Mt 6,24)
To serve outside of this orbit is to reduce serving into something servile or enslaving, something that degrades us rather than dignifies us.
The reason we often end up hating to serve is because we serve improperly—we serve ourselves rather than God, first, and then others. Serving in this way would inflict us with a short-circuit sooner or later.
To serve should be our guiding principle, since it gives meaning and direction to our life. It's what fulfills us, what brings us to our proper end and joy. It identifies us with Christ and unites us with others. It builds up our communion with God and our solidarity with the others.
Said another way, it is only in serving that we can know and love Christ and let others know and love Christ as well. Christ cannot be discerned with the head alone. Knowing and loving him involves our whole being whose different aspects are actuated and integrated when we serve.
It is only in serving that we can start building and strengthening our Christian culture of life and love. We have to do everything to make serving like the motive for our thoughts, desires, words and deeds.
Let's be wary of the subtle tricks the devil and we can play on our own selves, blurring the distinction between God's will and ours, and making God's will to conform to ours instead of ours to his.
Let's welcome every opportunity to serve God and others, which can always be done anytime, anywhere. In the small and big things of our day, we are always faced with the choice between working for God and others, or working for ourselves.
To achieve this, we need to develop virtues and eradicate our vices. We need to pray, study God's will and be familiar with his ways and commands. We need to fight against pride, laziness, attachments, etc. that blind us.
We need to fill our hearts with desires to serve always. The moment we wake up, the first thought that should come to mind is to serve God. It's a resolution that we have to renew many times during the day.
This will make our life simple, imbuing it with a clear sense of direction. This will somehow always attract grace and generate its own energy for us to carry out God's will irrespective of problems and difficulties.
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@hotmail.com)