Useless Servants

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“We are useless servants. We have only done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10), we’re told in Scripture.

And in another place, we’re told, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I tell you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37).

Possibly this is not [a favorite] of Our Lord’s parables—The Parable of the Unworthy Servant—because in some ways, it doesn’t seem fair to the poor servant who is so put upon. We would prefer that the master would praise him warmly when he returns from work and let him get some rest.

But we can be consoled by the fact that there are other Gospel passages that take an approach that’s very different from this parable: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37).

We don’t need to doubt the goodness of the master towards the servants who’ve done that work for him. They will receive even more than they deserve.

So what does this parable mean? Despite its apparent severity, like all of Our Lord’s parables, it’s a narrative of love and of freedom.

It invites us not to think of ourselves as indispensable, which in the end is a very liberating thought. Considering ourselves indispensable can give rise to worries from which Our Lord wants to deliver us.

But above all, Our Lord is telling us that the work we do for Him or for others doesn’t give us a right to anything—some particular consideration or award. Doing good earns us recognition, but not a reward. We are useless servants.

The relationship with God is based on freely giving and receiving, not on some trade or quid pro quo.

One who lacks this perspective is at risk of having a life of unhappiness and disappointment. Our relationship with God will be founded on some kind of bookkeeping where there are two columns, one showing what we’ve given and the other what we have received.

We will never be satisfied with the balance, since some psychological wounds resulting from our comparisons—our jealousy, our self-love—won’t allow it.

If we say to ourselves, ‘I’ve only done my duty, I’m a useless servant, the good I’ve done is a pure gift of God who allowed me to do it and I have nothing that comes from myself,’ then we will feel free and always satisfied.

If, as the Lord says, “My right hand does not know what my left hand is doing” (Matt. 6:3), this will lead to great peace. If I don’t fret over comparing what I give and what I receive, if I have no rights arising from what I’ve given, I will always be happy.

Each one of us has received a lot, not because of some accumulation of merit on our part, but by the generosity of God. Then we’ll always come out ahead in attributing everything to God’s generosity rather than our own [merit.] The one is infinite; the other very limited.

This is an aspect of the poverty of heart that we’re called to have: claiming nothing, demanding nothing in return for the good we have done. We do what we need to do, and for the rest, we trust God entirely. This isn’t always easy, because it requires a lot of detachment and a lot of trust in God.

Someone who is poor in spirit accepts salvation as pure mercy, not as something given as a result of merit or personal good works.

With that approach, we see salvation as a grace, not as a right or as the result of our efforts. The individual stands before God with empty hands—useless servant—knowing that the ability to serve God (rather than the world or the self) is in itself an unmerited grace, and that any recompense for service is given altogether freely.

A poor person doesn’t look upon his good deeds as props to bolster his self-esteem but instead looks to God’s mercy as his sole support.

We [are] happy to owe Him everything, because we make no pretense of self-sufficiency. We want to be like little children, content to receive everything from the generous hand of Our father and to depend entirely on Him for everything.

This type of poverty of spirit is happiness because it makes us totally dependent on God and more completely attaches us to Him.

The goal of our life is not to glorify ourselves or be satisfied with ourselves, but to glorify the infinite mercy of God to whom we owe everything.

Poverty of spirit in relation to self means putting aside all aspects of self-regard and thinking only about God’s free love for us: putting all our trust in Him and not in ourselves, with a deeper awareness all the time that servi inutiles sumus—we are useless servants.

And so, Scripture invites us to always recognize and to accept our limitations and our poverty, accepting ourselves with all our radical weaknesses, our fragility; and being reconciled to it, placing our trust not in ourselves, but only in Him.

We’re told, “Oh, how I would like to be able to make you understand what I feel!” St. Thérèse of Lisieux used to say (Thérèse of Lisieux, General Correspondence, Volume Two).

There’s a beautiful expression from her, of how being satisfied with littleness and grounded in total confidence in God attracts divine grace, which can transform us and lead us to the summits of love that we would otherwise be incapable of attaining by our own strength.

This type of radical poverty of spirit, understood and accepted, is the font for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

In this way, our poverty of spirit in expectation of God’s mercy becomes our salvation. Not a handicap, but an opportunity!

This is what allows St. Paul to declare, “God’s power is made perfect in weakness,” and to say, “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest in me. … When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

This doesn’t mean that we give up on improving ourselves or allow ourselves to sink into laziness or mediocrity. We shouldn’t despair or become anxious at experiencing our human limitations. We should accept them and profit from them by placing all our hope in the Lord.

There may be some situations in which we have a duty in relation to other people to demand something or to impose some things on them: to provide for their education, to exercise legitimate authority in the family or in social or ecclesial life.

But we’re still useless servants. This is done in service to the common good and for the good of the person, and not for our own gratification.

St. Paul says, “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all…” (1 Cor. 9:19). Being poor in spirit in regard to others means humbling ourselves lovingly.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux says, “The nature of love is to humble oneself” (Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul). Rather than seeking to domineer from a position of superiority, one must make oneself small before the other, in a spirit of humility and service.

Like Jesus, washing the feet of His disciples, said, “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). And in St. Matthew, He says, “He who is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matt. 23:11). It is in this context that the Roman Pontiff is called Servus servorum Dei, “Servant of the servants of God.”

St. Paul in his Letter to the Corinthians says, “Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (1 Cor. 10:24).

In St. John’s Gospel, St. John the Baptist illustrates this attitude of detachment well by stepping aside to make way for Christ, joyfully accepting that the crowds, and even his own disciples, leave him to follow Jesus. He makes claims on no one but seeks to lead them to Christ.

We’re told, “Now a discussion arose between John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptizing, and all are going to him.’

“John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what is given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.” He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore, this joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease’” (John 3:25-30).

Mercy and forgiveness towards others are essential aspects of poverty of spirit. Renouncing resentment and the desire for vengeance while forgiving debts requires a large supply of these virtues.

Practicing poverty of spirit towards our neighbor also means not having to have the last word all the time, setting aside the prideful insistence that ‘I am always right.’

It means accepting being misunderstood, without always needing to justify ourselves. It means keeping silence. Christ was silent on His way to Calvary.

Sometimes we have to express ourselves in order to dispel misunderstandings and establish the truth of something other people may not have perceived. But when we speak up, it should not be to show how clever we are or claim some supposed right of ours.

We have to know how to turn things over to God without always being understood and accepted by those around us.

We should love being hidden, known only by God, since often what is most beautiful and most precious is also most hidden. May our lives be hidden in God!

We’re told in St. Matthew, “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:17-18).

Generosity is one of the most beautiful forms of poverty of spirit. Our Lord said, “If anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you” (Matt. 5:40-42).

We can’t always give others what they want. We may allow ourselves to be imprisoned by human calculations, fears, and avarice. Being more free and generous carries with it a stronger experience of the faithfulness and providence of God.

And in facing up to life and all that it brings with it—the joys and pains, what is happy and what is difficult—in the end, the poverty of spirit of which we speak is simply a right relationship with existence.

The right attitude toward the good things life brings is to embrace them with simplicity and thanksgiving, but not to cling to anything in a possessive or anxious manner.

We’re told in the Book of Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

This is freedom in a spirit of detachment. The only good to which we must absolutely attach ourselves is God; all else is relative. Embrace what God gives, certainly, but in such a way that one’s heart is not enslaved to anything.

To be poor requires that we accept the austerities that life can bring our way: material, emotional, spiritual, whatever it may be.

Sometimes we may have to make a choice for poverty of spirit, but true poverties are not those that we choose for ourselves, but those that life imposes on us.

These losses, deceptions, or sufferings, even though difficult, are sources of grace when we accept them. From them we learn that the love and faithfulness of God are the only wealth that can fulfill our desires, enriching us as nothing and nobody else can do.

Our Lord said to St. Peter, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go” (John 21:18).

This is a prediction of the deaths of the apostles as martyrs, but it can also be understood in a more general sense as Our Lord’s invitation to follow Him on a life’s journey that may lead us where we would otherwise not have chosen to go.

Having poverty of spirit means accepting the fact that we are not the masters of our own lives. We don’t totally control them. We are useless servants.

In modern society, we can have an obsession with control—planning everything, choosing everything, making all things subject to our wills. But this in the long term may be impossible, no matter how highly advanced we become technologically.

The pretension to being all-powerful may lead only to disappointment and anguish. We need to wake up to the fact that it’s precisely the situations that we cannot control that may contribute most to our growth. Unable to change what lies outside us, we must change ourselves. And in the end, that is what matters.

To be useless servants means knowing how to abandon ourselves, trustingly allowing ourselves to be led along the unforeseen pathways of life, and saying yes to reality.

Human wisdom gives way to the mysterious wisdom of God. God’s ways are not our ways (cf. Isa. 55:8-9).

When we cease playing at being life’s masters and consent to embrace what comes to us day by day, life becomes full of meaning and beauty.

We’re told in St. Luke, “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will preserve it” (Luke 17:33). This means coming to terms with not understanding everything and not having answers to all our questions, being open to the mysteries of life. It means accepting a certain poverty of knowledge and abandoning ourselves in faith.

This finds expression as a beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29).

And so, we could ask ourselves an important question: What is my foundational attitude towards life? Sometimes we can be like people at a reception who are offered a big tray with several dishes. Some we might like a lot, others not so much. We’re tempted to set aside what we don’t like and take more of what we like.

You can do that with a platter of food, but you can’t do it with life—and trying can result in a catastrophe.

On what basis would we make our choices? Do we really know what’s good for us? We’ve all had the experience of craving things that were big flops when we actually obtained them, and trying to avoid things that proved to be precious opportunities for human and spiritual growth.

The task isn’t to filter out aspects of our lives, but as Thérèse of Lisieux put it, to “choose everything”—to welcome it all and not just put up with certain things reluctantly. In the Book of Sirach, we’re told, “Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you, be patient” (Sir. 2:4).

The best, the most fruitful, exercise of freedom is not found in choosing but in consenting—and not passively or fatalistically, but with trust in life as a gift from God.

Sometimes we have to choose to do good and avoid evil, and we must do what we can to remedy negative situations in which we find ourselves (if we’re sick, trying to get well), but all of this can be done in a spirit of acceptance, cultivating a good spirit and rejecting a bad one.

Another way of accepting poverty of spirit and being those useless servants is to consent to the present moment. St. Josemaría liked to say, “Hodie, nunc! Here and now!” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 163).

Accepting the will of God in this particular moment: “If it’s your will, Lord, then it’s my will also” (J. Escrivá, cf. The Way, Point 762)—without trying to return to the past or plan the future. We possess only the present.

We should accept the past and trust the future to divine providence. Forget the way already travelled and set out afresh each day.

St. Josemaría liked the phrase, the aspiration, “Nunc coepi! Now I begin!” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 161)—each new day, each new hour, each new period of each day.

We shouldn’t boast about the good accomplished or worry about the evil committed, but begin again each day believing, hoping, and loving.

That’s what our Morning Offering is all about. It’s a very good prayer to recite out loud with children at a young age so that they learn it.

Poverty of spirit means not tying security to any particular thing. Often, the more we seek human security, the more anxious we can become. Our only security should be the infinite mercy of God.

We have to embrace other things when they come—material goods, talents, qualities, virtues, skills, education, relationships, friendships, emotional support, institutions—and we must obtain these things when to do so is legitimate.

But we shouldn’t base our security on them or to consider them as some sort of bedrock that we can trust. Everything in this world is passing away. Our only definitive support is the mercy of God.

St. John Eudes said, “Do not rely on the power or influence of friends, on your own money, on your intellect, knowledge, or strength, on your good desires and resolutions, or on human means, or on any created thing, but on God’s mercy alone.

“You may, of course, use all these things and take advantage of every aid that you can marshal on your side to conquer vice, to practice virtue, to direct and conclude all the business that God has placed in your hands, and acquit yourself of the obligations of your state in life. But you must renounce all dependence or confidence you may have in these things, to rely on Our Lord’s goodness alone” (John Eudes, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian Souls).

The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity can assist us in this whole process. They are the heart of the Christian life. They create in us all of God’s riches.

Faith presupposes poverty of spirit of a certain kind, because to believe means accepting that we don’t always see and don’t always understand, walking often in darkness.

It means making progress by relying on another, handing ourselves over to a truth that surpasses us which we don’t totally understand. It means obedience of a sort, basing our lives on the words of others, dispossessing ourselves. Abraham, our father in the faith, set out not knowing his destination (cf. Gen. 12:1,4; Heb. 11:8).

Hope is also a form of poverty of spirit. To hope means not to possess, but waiting in trust for what we don’t yet possess, as St. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans: “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom. 8:24-25).

Love also presupposes a certain interior poverty. To love means to live not for oneself but for another. Deciding to love someone means consenting to dependence, renouncing self-sufficiency.

True love requires renunciation of all domination, all power over the other, all possessiveness, and obliges us to respect the freedom of the other.

If the theological virtues give rise to a certain form of poverty of spirit, poverty for its part is the fertile ground in which the theological virtues flourish.

If poverty is a grace, it’s because it requires us not to live as we’re accustomed to do, not to content ourselves with the resources that we find congenial, but to believe, hope, and love in a deeper and more pure way. It is the occasion for practicing the theological virtues in all of their intensity and fruitfulness.

And so, meditating on being a useless servant and on the Beatitudes sheds light on how to practice those virtues of faith, hope, and love in our daily lives.

We can ask Our Lady who set out on her pilgrimage of faith entrusting everything in the future to the hand of God: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Mary, may you help us to live out fruitfully this aspect of the Gospel passage.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

BWM

Parts of this meditation were taken from The Eight Doors of the Kingdom: Meditations on the Beatitudes by Jacques Philippe (Scepter, 2018).