When you have done all you have been commanded

Wis 2,23-3,9; Ps 33; Lk 17,7-10
12 NOVEMBER

What was ordered to man? The answer comes to us through the prophet Micah. This man would like to do many things for his Lord. But they have not been commanded by Him. They are not welcome to Him. They are not from his will, heart and mind.

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with holocausts, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God. Hark! the Lord cries to the city. (It is wisdom to fear your name!) Hear, O tribe and city council, You whose rich men are full of violence, whose inhabitants speak falsehood with deceitful tongues in their heads! Am I to bear any longer criminal hoarding and the meager ephah that is accursed? Shall I acquit criminal balances, bags of false weights? Rather I will begin to strike you with devastation because of your sins. You shall sow, yet not reap, tread out the olive, yet pour no oil, and the grapes, yet drink no wine. You shall eat, without being satisfied, food that will leave you empty; What you acquire, you cannot save; what you do save, I will deliver up to the sword. You have kept the decrees of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have walked in their counsels; Therefore I will deliver you up to ruin, and your citizens to derision; and you shall bear the reproach of the nations (Mi 6,6-16).

What did the Lord ask the children of Israel? The perfect observance of his Law, of his Statutes and Commandments. God asks only obedience, all obedience to all his Law. He does not ask other things and other things must not be done. What does Jesus ask his disciples? That they put his Word into practice. He asks perfect obedience to his Gospel, demands all obedience, without ever failing it. When our obedience is perfect, then we must declare ourselves useless servants. Why useless? Because our God will do everything else for us, according to his promise.

Unless the Lord builds the house, They labour in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labours; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep. Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate (Ps 127 (126) 1-5).

If the Lord does not give his blessing, the sky is of copper, the earth of iron, the trees of stone, the plants of marble, the souls of tow and everything else for us becomes chaff. While when everything is done from obedience to the Word, the blessing of the Lord fills the heart, soul, spirit, mind and home. One receives nothing in the blessing and nothing is everything. In the non-blessing one has everything and everything is transformed into a nothingness. We eat, but we are not satisfied, we drink and we are not quenched, we cover ourselves but we are not protected.

“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'”

One of the tasks related to the apostolic mission is that of teaching not the Gospel, but of living the Gospel by showing how it must be lived in every moment of our daily existence. One must teach how to obey the Gospel, by obeying. If you do not obey, you cannot even teach how to obey. Jesus asked for denial and he denied himself. He asked to take the cross and he took it. He asked to live the Word and he lived it all, without neglecting even a dash of it. He is the real useless servant. He did what he was asked to do. The Father has done everything else for him: he has raised him up into the highest and constituted him Lord.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure that our obedience to the Gospel is perfect.