For what purpose have you come? What would be your success for all your hard work and sacrifice? If you don’t find that, how sad it is to do many things without having recompense! As Jesuit Pedro Arrupe said, “What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evening, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” Let’s say it is “success” that we all long for. However, here you have to be careful about the thing I noticed which is related to “Everyone is looking for me.”
If you pursue success in terms of getting approval or applause from people, you are in the wrong track. It will drive you crazy because people are not dependable. They don’t know what they want; they change in a mood. You can’t count on that unless you are crazy like them. What if I followed the disciples in that early morning to satisfy the desires people had for their own sakes because they looked for me; I was really popular. My disciples were excited as well to see that. But, many seem to be lost in the way that others want them to strive for in the name of popularity. It looks easier to be a doctor than to be a healer, a lawyer an observer, a businessman a social worker. But don’t get me wrong because I think every desire to be successful is valuable.
However, the real hard question is whether you can walk away from your success without regret. It challenges you if you are free in the pursuit of what you think is right. Here I want to mention the secret of my success. In that early dawn when I rose and went off to a deserted place to pray, do you think what I was looking for? It was not me, not people. It was the one who sent me, who gave me life. It was God the Father in whom I was belonging. I was with my Father, my ultimate driving force in the prayerful communion with him. My success was nothing but doing the will of the Father. You can say I was obsessed by that. Yes, my relatives thought I was possessed and out of mind. This is why I came. My foundational identity, my way of being successful, reclaimed in prayer, moved me away from the crowds that sought me. I had to move on. I had to get the message out.
I think my disciple Paul expresses this well in his letter: “Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the (will of the Father), so that I too may have a share in it.”
And I can tell my success and your success are common to be truly who we are because we are created to praise, reverence and serve God and in that way God save us. And the rest of creation is here to help us fulfill our success in this life. As I say, “I have come not to be served but to serve,” it is the secret words of success for you. It means whoever wishes to be greater or to be successful among you will be your servant, just as the Son of Man has come not to be served but to serve and to give his own life as ransom for many.
I wish you don’t forget your life purpose and my success for you because you are asked to continue to be successful by being a servant to others. It is the success for which we are created and of which you are to be most happy. In this sense, nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute and final way. If you fall in love, stay in love in your prayerful communion with God the Father, and it will decide everything.