What is the difference between membership and discipleship?
Membership can be easy; sometimes all you need to do to be a member of some group is to show up. You can choose to participate or not. So many people become members of a gym, for instance, but never commit themselves to it.
Discipleship, however, is a whole different concept. Discipleship involves work, overcoming obstacles, sacrifice and faith. It is nothing less than love in action. Discipleship demands much of us and is always challenging us as to how we can best serve others at any given moment.
In our gospel today, that’s just what Jesus is talking about. A servant’s task is never done. The servant we heard about comes in from a full day’s work in the field not to eat right away, but to serve the master’s meal. He is doing what is expected of him.
How often lately we’ve seen police or firefighters interviewed after a tragic event or rescue, and their response is “I’m just doing my job.” Jesus said a servant of the Lord shouldn’t expect to receive special recognition. We obey because it’s our job; it’s what discipleship is all about. Service is a disciple’s lifestyle.
Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first United States naturalized citizen to be canonized, is a model of discipleship. She was born in 1850 in Italy, the youngest of the thirteen children. Sadly, only four of the thirteen survived beyond adolescence.Born two months premature, Frances remained in delicate health throughout her life.
Refused admission to the religious order which had educated her, she began charitable work at the House of Providence Orphanage in Italy. In September 1877, she made her vows there and took the religious habit.
When the bishop closed the orphanage in 1880, he named Frances prioress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Seven young women from the orphanage joined her.
Since her early childhood in Italy, Frances had wanted to be a missionary in China but, at the urging of Pope Leo XIII, Frances went west instead of east. She traveled with six sisters to New York City to work with the thousands of Italian immigrants living there.
She found disappointment and difficulties with every step. When she arrived in New York, the house intended to be her first orphanage in the United States was not available. The archbishop advised her to return to Italy. But Frances, truly a valiant woman, departed from the archbishop’s residence all the more determined to establish that orphanage. And she did. For the next 35 years, Frances Xavier Cabrini founded 67 institutions dedicated to caring for the poor, the abandoned, the immigrants, the uneducated and the sick. She died in Chicago in 1917.
St. Frances, model of discipleship, sacrifice and service, pray for us.
