Do you know what you are asking for?

A missionary must be ready for anything: joy and sorrow, life and death, embrace and abandonment. Our life is a combination of pain and delight, anxiety and hope, suffering and consolation. (…)
Every day I am asking the Lord for: 1. A necessary cross to sow well and to fertilize God’s works; 2. Male and female staff in the spirit of Jesus Christ; 3. Money and material resources to preserve His Work. The goodness of God in infinite love gives me a first grace in particular.
Saint. Daniel Comboni
Success and power are something that has been desired by man since the dawn of time. From childhood, many of us were raised to success. Our parents, teachers, employers and friends encouraged us to do so. The ambition fueled over the years leads many people to the attitude “I deserve more, more, even more”. Success and power are associated with a sense of control over reality. They bring satisfaction, take time, help increase capital, be calm about the future.
Perhaps it was the ambition, the thirst for power, and the will to take care of the future under the banner of success that prompted two of Jesus’ close disciples to make demands of the Master. “We want you to do for us what we want.”
A quite popular request. Similar to those that we bring to our employers when we want to get a raise, a promotion, or a change of position for the better than before. Sometimes we ask our loved ones to put us closest to each other. We do not want competition in the relationship with the husband or wife. We prioritize our friends’ friends by setting demands. We have expectations for all those who may in any way affect our personal success, level of self-satisfaction and moral satisfaction.
We are able to demand a confessional priest, a parish priest, who is to baptize a child, give us the sacrament of marriage or prepare for confirmation. We demand promotions and the best places, even from God. We want to be first in line, right behind Jesus. We are arguing about who is to be at the altar as a reader, who is to stand in the choir, and who is under it. There are many such attitudes in the community of believers in Christ. We undertake the service for the Church and we often have a great complaint about the lack of appreciation, the fact that no one gave thanks in some special, special way. We can, like John and Jacob, ask, “I’ve served, I’ve served, now it’s time for honor and reward.”
And Jesus doesn’t take offense. He answers in a puzzling way, gently and firmly at the same time. The other apostles are indignant at John and James, perhaps out of jealousy, or perhaps out of regret that they did not anticipate their colleagues with similar ideas. Jesus is still not angry, he responds calmly, and gives a short sermon on what greatness and service really are.

What strikes me most is the words, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
A Christian who wants to be great must become a servant. And whoever wants to be first should be like a slave.
Who is the servant? Who is a slave? It stands in the lowest places, in the shadow, in the background, it is always ready to work. There is no requirement for honors. He often gets the lowest or unsatisfactory wage for his work. The slave does not receive it at all. He gets a roof over his head, food, a piece of land to grow. Service is a job that is associated primarily with availability, with the necessity to submit to a supervisor, some work schedule, over which you quite often have little influence. We know the various professions referred to in the services, e.g. health, civil and military. These are professions in which you get promotion thanks to really hard work and deepened qualifications. The higher the positions, the more work, more responsibility, more difficult matters to solve. A high position is not only an honor, it is above all a great responsibility and a great task. Only who wants to remember this?
The apostles, who formed the structures of the Church after Christ’s death and resurrection, were guided by the method of humility. The early bishops were one of the Church’s busiest and weary men. They were often sick, hungry and persecuted, and lived with someone who hosted them. They had basically nothing but what belonged to the whole community.
When we look at the apostles today, we sometimes get sad. I don’t mean only clergy, priests and nuns in senior positions, but especially lay people. Those who are often impeded by ambition and striving for power in the structures of the Church from truly serving the Kingdom of God. Both laity and clergy often forget what greatness and primacy in the Church is and should be. But there are also those who do not forget.
There are people in the Church who we rarely hear about in the media. I know a few personally. The first to lead people seeking to follow Christ, they become their servants. Ready for distant journeys into the unknown, to leave their fortune, families and their own identity. To participate in what Jesus said: “You shall drink the cup which I am about to drink; and the baptism that I am about to receive you will also receive. But it is not for Me to be given a place on my right or left, but [it will get into] those for whom it has been prepared. ”
They are next to us, they do not attract the attention of the front pages of newspapers and tabloids. Jesus knows about them, and that’s enough for them. Sometimes we are lucky to meet them as retreats, sisters running Catholic kindergartens, people dealing with catechesis and family pastoral care. They are responsible in their environments, they are the servants and slaves of these environments. Often underestimated.
John and James did not know, probably did not even think that Jesus was talking about his suffering on the cross, about death and abandonment by all. About the cross above all, which is the highest distinction in the earthly Christian career. This is the end of my career at Jesus’ company.

Who then wants to continue asking for a place of honor to the left and right of Jesus? On the level of earthly life, let me remind you, next to Jesus martyred on the cross, at the very end of his “career” there were two thieves. Only one of his disciples and Mary, the mother of Jesus, stood at the foot of the cross. And they probably didn’t feel honored or proud of their position. I suspect they were devastated and scared. They could only believe and trust, persevere in the task of following the Master.
What, then, is the exaltation and glory in the lives of Christ’s disciples? I leave the question for personal contemplation. It is best to look for the answer before the icon of the Crucified.

P.S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S88tTVTaSc8 Upside down, Magda Anioł

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