Called to Servant Leadership
I think one of the best gifts we can give our high school students in today’s world is the reassurance that there is no degree, no job role, no title that has the final say in their belovedness by God. Even the title of Pope. Simply by our breathing and being are we beloved. And because we are loved, WE ARE CALLED to seeking how best we can serve God and draw near to Christ, who is Love. We have a magnificent God that called Cardinal Robert Prevost, a neighborhood boy from Chicago to lead the Church as Pope Leo XIV. And that same God calls each one of us to find our place in the Body of Christ. This is the vocational journey.
Yet, a faithful disciple does not always know where Christ is. With deep listening to our lives and to the cries of others, we have to keep being drawn towards love as best we can. The mystery of ministry and our faith - and our vocation - is that Jesus comes to us, encounters us as a human, as simple bread, as wine, as someone with flesh and bone as Thomas believed. Mary Magdalene mistakes Jesus as a gardener. He is mistaken as a stranger, another traveler on the road to Emmaus, and the disciples thought he was just another fisherman on the shore. Perhaps at the heart of vocational discernment - how am I to lead, Lord? - is a willingness to believe that even a gardener, or a farmer, or a migrant, our classmate, or our coworker could be the Risen Christ here among us. And then to feed them, tend to them, to undo shame, to love despite human failings…that is servant leadership. That is Christ’s Leadership. This week, like a pope, like a shepherd, like a ‘servant for the servants of God’, let us all lead each other towards Love. Then we can with boldness proclaim: Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him!
Listen to this Week’s Podcast
What does it really mean to preach with power and presence in today’s world?
In this deeply inspiring episode of The Attentive Heart, host Fr. John Gribowich welcomes Capuchin Father Edward Foley—a prolific scholar, preacher, and teacher whose work fuses theology, neuroscience, and the art of storytelling.
Listen & Subscribe to the Attentive Heart Podcast hosted by CALLED program director Fr. John Gribowich
