Servants of Grace: Leading from Fragility: July 25, 2025

Servants of Grace. ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.’ Sometimes Jesus does serve the disciples by doing what they ask, healing people at their request. Sometimes, as in today’s gospel, he serves them by not doing so. But Jesus sees what James is ultimately capable of.”

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Servants of Grace: Leading from Fragility

“We carry this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
—2 Corinthians 4:7

St James the Apostle: Krakow 2025

‘Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.’ What a marvellous text for a General Chapter of Provincials.

Everyone talks about “servant leaders” but what does it mean? We imagine that servants do what we ask them. “Waiter, get me a bowl of spaghetti!” “Clean this room”. Some brethren certainly think of their priors and provincials like this. We talk of ‘the broken toaster’ syndrome: a brother finds the toaster is broken, and so he puts on a notice on it for the Prior:’ This toaster is broken. Please mend it’. Until I became Prior, I never wondered who ordered the milk. It just turned up.

Sometimes Jesus does serve the disciples by doing what they ask, healing people at their request. God’s joy is to give us what we want. We pray also to give God the pleasure of answering our prayers.

Sometimes, as in today’s gospel, he serves them by not doing so. The mother of James and John, or the disciples themselves in Mark’s gospel, ask Jesus for places at his left and right in the Kingdom. But they do not know what they are asking for. It is the two thieves who will have these places on the left and right of Jesus on the cross. James, whose feast we are celebrating today, runs away.

But Jesus sees what James is ultimately capable of. ‘You will drink my chalice’. He is greater than his failure. He will be the first of the disciples to martyred. Herod will cut off his head. Jesus sees that this weak and angry man will give glory to God in a marvellous way that James cannot yet imagine. St Paul says to the Corinthians: ‘We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us’. James is indeed a fragile earthen vessel. But Jesus sees in him the surpassing power of God. Jesus serves James but not by doing what he asks but by ultimately asking of him vastly more: the free gift of his life.

You Provincials are elected to serve the brethren. Often you do so by enabling them to do what they want. The most beautiful obedience is asking a brother to use his talents for the common mission of the Order. Our Irish brother, Paul Murray is a marvellous poet. It was liberating for him to be told by his Provincial that his poetry was not just a private occupation, his private thing. It is part of our mission! He is our poet, part of our preaching.

Sometimes we serve the brethren by not doing what they ask. This may be because they are mistaken about their talents. A brother mistakenly might think that he is the Thomas Aquinas for the 21st century, but he would be a wonderful bursar. Or less commonly, the other way around.

We see that these fragile earthen vessels, our brethren, are usually capable of more wonderful acts of grace than they can ever imagine. We ask from them more than they think they have to give. St Albert the Great heard that young Thomas Aquinas was mocked by his fellow students as a dumb ox. Not just because he was big but because he was slow of speech. Albert saw that “the bellowing of this dumb ox will one day resound throughout the world.” I bet Albert understood this before Thomas did himself.

I expect that we have all had that experience in some minor way. I thought that I would be incapable of teaching. But when the brother who taught scripture at Blackfriars died unexpectedly, I was asked to take his place although I had not had time for any further studies. I was terrified and felt out of my depth, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me, even if not for my students! You Provincials have been seen by your brothers as capable of serving the brethren. You may think that they are wrong, but our brethren know us better than we know ourselves.

So your service of the brethren means becoming alert to how the grace of God is quietly at work in them. We try to see that they are all capable of doing marvellous things, more than they can imagine. The grace of God is at work in these earthen vessels. Surprise them.

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