Happy that servant whose master’s arrival finds him at his employment
Jesus describes as happy, the servant whose master’s arrival finds him at his employment, adding that his master will place him over everything he owns. In the Parable of the Talents, the faithful servant is not only rewarded by greater responsibility over the master’s property, he is also invited to share the master’s happiness (Matthew 25:21). In Luke 12:37, it is said of the servants whose master finds faithful at their duties: “Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” Who wouldn’t wish for self-such an enviable role!
St. Paul is such faithful servant with a very high sense of the importance of the duty entrusted to him. He is a one who carries out this duty with great consciousness and great humility, and who died doing this duty; died on account of this duty. In the first reading we hear him say: “I have been made the servant of that gospel by a gift of grace from God who gave it to me by his own power. I, who am less than the least of all the saints, have been entrusted with this special grace, not only of proclaiming to the pagans the infinite treasure of Christ but also of explaining how the mystery is to be dispensed”.
We pray for the grace to understand, like Paul, the greatness of the Christian vocation, to esteem it, and to carry it out diligently and faithfully, and one day to share in the great promises attached to the faithful fulfilment of that mission.
