Service With Love

St John Chrysostom

Jesus seems to have had a special place in His Sacred Heart for widows and orphans. That goes back, of course, to the OT, where, over and over, the solicitude of the God of Israel for the poor and the stranger is made tangible. Of course, it is clear that by the time Jesus was engaged in His public ministry, Mary, His Mother, was already a widow. Social Security was a 20th century invention, at least in the US, so a woman whose husband and sons had died faced a life of destitution. Here in Nain, Jesus restores a dead son to his mother, and although He told the woman not to weep, I suspect she shed tears of joy when her son rose from the stretcher and embraced her. It was like she had been raised from the dead with him.

St. Paul is very clear that Christian communities were graced by the One Holy Spirit with a multitude of spiritual gifts to be employed for the growth of the community. Not everyone has every gift, and I have found that the gifts that are needed by a community are always endowed by the Spirit. But Paul, right at the end of this chapter, tells us to seek the higher gifts, and previews his next remarks by calling them “a more excellent way.” That more excellent way is the exercise of the gifts in agape. I know that the exercise of a spiritual gift, like prophecy or preaching, can pump up the ego. “Look at me and what I can do,” we think. That’s particularly tempting in a leader who doesn’t have somebody close who can remind him of his weaknesses and shortcomings. And it means that the rest of us have a responsibility, first to pray diligently for our community leaders, and second to verbally, and charitably, slap them upside the head when they act arrogantly, or start pretending that the gifts are their property.

Twenty years ago tonight, I was ordained to the sacred diaconate, just as David Chacko was ordained three days ago. The word “deacon,” or diaconos, of course, means servant. It has been a privilege to serve in many capacities in that time, and I am grateful to the late Abp Flores (and the Holy Spirit, of course) for the trust. We should pray that more men and their wives present themselves for this service. It was a real joy to be ordained on the feast of the greatest preacher in the Eastern Church, John Chrysostom, who with St. Basil and St. Gregory the theologian, helped set & keep the Church on her orthodox path.