Tuesday of the Thirty-SecondWeek in Ordinary Time
We are useless servants
“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'” Lk 17,7-10
It is not easy, after we have fulfilled our duty, to be able to say that we are useless servants. But is it right to say this? What is, then, the spiritual attitude to achieve such a degree of humility? These are the questions which the today gospel poses to us. We have to say that the way of the humility is not viable with the human reasoning, which leads us to be always proud of our work when it is well done. It is necessary to enter into the dimension of the faith, recognizing our status of “creature”, promoted and created by God to praise honor and glory to him for what we are and for his Spirit, which has allowed us to well manage the talents which we have received. If the pot is well done and useful for some use, the merit is all about for the potter. We are useless servants; because also our usefulness, which is real when we work well, is not dependent on us, but on God who has wished, planned, implemented and blessed it. We, at most, can have the merit of being a docile clay for us to be kneaded and shaped. It is the attitude of Mary, who, upon the announcement of the archangel Gabriel to be the mother of the Son of God, replied: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to thy word” (Lk 1,38). For what we are, for the talents which we have received and for what is required to us to be done, we can only say “Here I am” and thank the Lord for having involved us in his plan of salvation. We are useless servants, but blessed and called by God to work for his glory.