Sunday Gospel Reflection: October 30th, 2011

Matthew 23:1-12

When I was in elementary school everyone wanted to be the line leader. This was the coveted class role to be the first in line, walking ahead of everyone else while they followed behind. As we walked from one known destination to another there was no real leadership or service going on, in fact, line-leader was simply a privilege, a position of honor.

As I have grown older I have realized that being a leader is not about a position in line or letters following a name. Being a leader means being like Jesus, imitating our God who became a servant for us, a servant leader. Can there be a better example of leadership than God who became one of us?

Sometimes being a servant leader means setting aside other good things like money, popularity, preferences, my (inherently better) idea or way of doing something so we can focus on how to love God and others better.

Most of the time being a servant leader is tough, it requires us to do what is more challenging: lead by example even if it goes unseen, be humble in successes, face criticism with inner strength, and always be the best version of ourselves, a person of integrity, whether or not other people are living that identity themselves.

We need help being good servant leaders and should look to our family and Catholic community for support and prayer.  We are blessed as Catholics to have as a part of our faith family not just the people we know from Church, but all of the Christians who lived for the last two thousand years and are still living with God in Heaven: the Saints.

On Novemebr 1^st the one billion Catholics throughout the world celebrate a great day called All Saints Day. We celebrate the Saints, those heroes and role models who have gone before us, members of our faith family, who lived their lives with great love. Saints are normal people like us who imitated Jesus as servant leaders. Some of them did extraordinary things in their lives, but most of the time they simply did ordinary things with extraordinary love; we are called to do the same thing. The Saints are great examples for how we can live our lives and their example gives us confidence that we can be saints too! It is important that we pray to the Saints who are close to God in Heaven so they can ask God to help us and give us what we need to be saints to.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion:

-What is one concrete way that I can be a servant leader in my life this week?

-What Saint(s) is a role model for me? Why?