‘Useless Servants’ Trained and Eager to Do What Is Good, 32nd Tuesday (II), November 12, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Tuesday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Josaphat
November 12, 2024
Ti 2:1-8.11-14, Ps 37, Lk 17:7-10

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today, Jesus teaches us about a fundamental Christian attitude. Yesterday, we pondered Jesus’ words about setting good example rather than scandal and of forgiving continuously when someone repents, which led his apostles, because of the difficulty they foresaw, to cry out, “Lord, increase our faith!” Jesus described for them the power of faith the size of a mustard seed, that that amount of faith is enough to translocate mountain ranges, and so, even with a little faith, persevering in good example and forgiveness ought to be easy in comparison! That leads Jesus today to talk about the perseverance, humility and gratitude that flow from faith, describing the situation of a servant who has just come in from the fields. Such a servant would never expect his boss to have him sit down at table and serve him as some type of reward for doing what he was supposed to do; rather he would expect him to continue serving. “So should it be with you,” Jesus draws the lesson. “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’” Jesus wants us to go on continuing to work in his vineyard, to set good Christian example, to be merciful like he is merciful, to live by faith. There’s no point at which we should say, “I’ve forgiven enough, now I can stop.” There’s no time when we should think, “I set a good example earlier. Now I can do my own thing.” Jesus wants us to persevere with gratitude for the gift of faith and like him continue serving others with love as he loved and served us to the end.
• In today’s first reading, St. Paul describes various traits that we should have in order to set that good Christian example. He talks about various classes of people — senior men, senior women, young people, even Titus himself. While at certain times of life particular virtues may be more timely, we should aspire to all of these virtues “so that the word of God may not be discredited” and so that critics “will be put to shame without anything bad to say about us.” Let’s examine each of them in turn.
  • Say what is consistent with sound doctrine — We all have a duty to speak in a way that’s consistent with the truth that God has revealed. If we teach contrary to the truth, whether we consciously or unconsciously know that it contradicts what God has taught through revelation and through the Church, we can draw people to follow us down a wrong path. We need to know sound doctrine and have the love for God and for others to pass it on.
  • Temperate — This means “sober” in terms of food and drink. With the passing of time, we should learn what our limits are, what are true pleasures, and how not to over-indulge. Drunks and gluttons are a sad scandal.
  • Dignified — This means that one is “serious” about one’s origin and destiny in God, about one’s divine filiation, and lives accordingly.
  • Self-controlled — The word in Greek means “prudent,” someone that has things under control, who doesn’t give in to flights of anger or passion.
  • Sound in faith, love and endurance — We must be “healthy” in our total self-entrustment to God and what he teaches, in sacrificing ourselves for God and others, and for perseverance until the end.
  • Reverent — We must learn how to regard with love and awe God and the things of God, especially others. To be reverent means to be conscious that one is dealing with sacred things.
  • Not slanderers — Gossip is a truly ugly scandal. Pope Francis says that by gossip we slay our brother Abel with our tongue.
  • Not addicted to drink — How sad it is to see someone who is addicted to anyone or anything other than God! An elderly lady addicted to drink is a sign that not even with the passage of years has one learned basic human lessons.
  • Teaching what is good — We can’t keep goodness to ourselves. Bonum diffusivum sui, the good spreads itself, as St. Thomas Aquinas famously said. We need to teach what is good.
  • Chaste — We must be capable of white hot, unselfish love, which chastity makes possible.
  • Good homemakers — Women in particular must know the art of filling a house with the warmth and love so as to make a home.
  • Control themselves — If one has no self-discipline, then one can’t discipline — or make disciples of — others.
  • Model of good deeds — To know what they should do, others should be able to copy our actions, which is the most powerful teaching of all.
  • Integrity in teaching, dignity and sound speech — We need to have the honesty and wholeness to follow what we teach on behalf of Christ, to carry ourselves as a Christian and to speak as a Christian ought.
  • Reject godless ways and earthly desires — We have to make a choice for Christ, which means that we likewise have to make a firm choice to separate ourselves from the things that are not of God and from spiritual worldliness. To believe in God we have to reject Satan, all his evil works and all his empty promises.
  • Just — We need to give God and others what they deserve, which is whole-hearted loving service until the end.
  • Devout — Devout means de voto, or from an vow or commitment that we’ve made to God and to others. It points to something that comes from the heart with love.
• These are the standard Christian virtues that set a good, rather than a scandalous, example for others. It might sound like a long list, as if St. Paul is proposing to us an unmeetable standard. But after summoning us to that style of life, he reminds us of God’s help to meet it, saying, “The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly and devoutly in this age.” God gives us what we need!
• Someone who lived with these virtues, who taught with sound doctrine, who persevered in the service of the Lord until the end, and who led the Church through some very difficult times, is the Ukrainian martyr St. Josaphat. He was a humble servant of the Lord who proved to be very useful, good and faithful. He was one who saw just how much the Lord wanted unity in his Church and gave his life as a seed to try to bring about that full flourishing. St. Josaphat was born Orthodox in the Ukraine in 1580. In 1595, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Metropolitan of Kiev and five bishops, representing millions of Ruthenians, came back into communion with Rome (after the split in 1054), and Josaphat was among them. Josaphat would eventually become a monk and begin to preach in favor of Christian unity in the midst of tremendous opposition — fundamentally political — against reunion with Rome. In 1617, he was ordained Bishop of Vitebsk and soon thereafter appointed Archbishop of Polotsk. There he continued to suffer to heal the scandal of schism and bring about the cause of unity. He had great faith and sought to increase the faith of others. When people were threatening to kill him, he said, “If I am accounted so worthy as to deserve martyrdom, then I am not afraid to die.” When various people in the city of Vitebsk were plotting against him, he forthrightly confronted them, “You people of Vitebsk want to put me to death. You make ambushes for me everywhere, in the streets, on the bridges, on the highways, in the marketplace. I am here among you as your shepherd and you ought to know that I should be happy to give my life for you. I am ready to die for the holy union, for the supremacy of St. Peter and of his successor the Supreme Pontiff.” His enemies got their chance on November 12, 1623. He returned home after prayer to find people attacking those who worked for him. He said to the persecutors, “My children, what are you doing with my servants? If you have anything against me, here I am, but leave them alone.” They began to cry, “Kill the papist! and he was shot by a bullet and then someone pierced his brain with a halberd, as he gave his life for the union offered to us in Christ. He continues to work, as a heavenly “useless servant,” for Christian unity. His body remains in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican as Masses are said on top of the altar containing his relics, praying not only for those in Ukraine but for the restoration of communion in the Church for which he gave his life.
• In the first reading today, St. Paul also describes the truly Christian motivation for continuing to serve God and others with the virtues he describes. It’s something important to grasp during this month of November as we continue to ponder the last things. Jesus had said that the prudent and faithful steward is the one who acts in the supposed absence of the Master as he would in the Master’s presence rather than thinking that the Master is long delayed in returning and beginning to get drunk, abuse and take advantage of others. St. Paul at the end of today’s passage says to Titus that God gives us the grace to live always in the presence of the Master, to “await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.” We repeat those words in every Mass after the Our Father as we prepare to receive that Blessed Hope, Jesus, on the altar, who gives himself to us so that we might live purely as his dwelling place, eager to serve. At Mass, we relive each day the mind-blowing reversal of today’s Gospel parable. According to human logic, as Jesus indicates, no slave would ever be invited in from working the fields in order to be served by the Master, yet that’s exactly what God the Father promises to do for all those how in fact serve him and others in this way. Just as Jesus put on an apron and washed the feet of the apostles during the Last Supper, Jesus promises that at the eternal wedding banquet, those who like Josaphat have always been vigilant in working, he will seat at table, gird himself with an apron and proceed to wait on them. (Lk 12:37). Even though we may be useless servants and even though we should have no expectation whatsoever to be served, that’s in fact what Jesus does at every Mass, cleansing and feeding us with himself as he did the apostles in the Upper Room, and preparing us for the eternal banquet where he seeks to serve and feed us out of love forever. Through the intercession of St. Paul and St. Josaphat, may we be strengthened by Christ whom we are about to receive to continue to do our work until the day when, God-willing, Christ with gratitude will welcome, wait upon and feed us with himself at the eternal banquet!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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