Daily Reflections - November 15,2012

When Slavery is Sweet Surrender

 

For the modern man who has long rejected the inhumane practice of slavery, Paul’s encouragement of the slave Onesimus in the First Reading to return to his master might be scandalous. Slavery was legal and commonplace in those days. What Paul did was to use the language of his pagan audience and inject it with rich Christian meaning and interpretation.

Look at Ephesians 5 for example. Here, Paul speaks of a wife’s “submission” to her husband — a submission not of a servile kind but a submission to one whose mission is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. And how did Christ love the Church? He died for Her and gave His life for Her. Christ is our master. But He is one master who came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life for the ransom of many” (Mark 10:45). When this is the kind of master one has, submission and  slavery is such sweet surrender. Paul clearly admonishes Philemon not to look at Onesimus as a slave but as a “beloved brother” (see Philemon 1:16).

This is how Paul transforms the master-slave equation: from a servile slavery borne out of fear of a cruel and powerful master to a freely chosen submission to One who we know wishes not to dominate but to donate, to give His life as a ransom for many.

Anyone who has experienced Christ the Master cannot but be a “slave.” The saints know this. That is why they can say, “Take, Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding, my whole will...”

Today, make St. Ignatius’s Prayer of Surrender below your own. Pray it in its entirety and ask the Lord to give you the grace to discover the paradox of real freedom in “slavery.” Fr. Joel Jason

 

REFLECTION QUESTION: Do you mirror Christ’s willingness to serve and not to be served?

 

“Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess, You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.”