Humble Service

The model for all of us who are called to serve others in one way or another, is Jesus. "The Son of Man did not come to be seved but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matt 20:28). The Baltimore Catechism's question, "Why did God make us?" was answered by, "God made us to know, love and serve him in this life and be happy with him in the next." How do we "serve him"? Well, keeping our eyes and ears open to needs around us gives us a pretty direct invitation. St. Marcellin responded to Jean Baptiste Montagne's ignorance of our faith by catechizing him on the spot, and then founding an Order of catechizers who would continue this work in perpetuity: The Marist Brothers. Today we remember St. Katherine Drexel, a wealthy Philadelphia heiress who used her fortune to build schools, staffed by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the congregation she founded, to educate African and Native Americans. Xavier University in New Orleans is one of these. She pitched in with her sisters, as humbly and devotedly as St. Marcellin, thinking only of others, not herself. She died in 1955 and was canonized in 1975, a relatively short time after her death. Yesterday, I was telling a man about a friend of mine who has nearly lost everything and is in very bad health. He immediately reached into his wallet and gave me a large sum of money and his offer of prayers for her. He insisted that the gift be made anonymously. When I called to tell her, she began to cry, saying that she had no money, her gas had been turned off, and wanted me to convey her deepest gratitude. Needs, responses, done quietly, without limelight or fanfare. All of us can do something like this in the footsteps of our Master.
Bro. Rene