Being a Slave of God and an Apostle of Christ

In today’s first reading, Titus 1:9, St. Paul introduces himself to  Titus as “a slave of God and Apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God’s chosen ones and the recognition of religious truth, in the hope of eternal life that God…promised before time began….”   Paul also tells Titus what he wants to see in a presbyter, a bishop, that is, in one who is a steward of God. Such persons, Paul states, must be blameless, humble, gentle, sober, generous, moderate, unconcerned about material gain,  lovers of goodness, hospitable, temperate, just, holy, self-controlled, and persons who hold on to the truth of sound doctrine. 

By our baptism, we are all reborn into persons of righteousness, persons who are to become lovers of goodness, who are to grow in such virtue as being  hospitable, temperate, just, holy, self-controlled and learners of the truth of sound doctrine. We are, in Paul’s words, by virtue of having died and rose with Christ in our baptism, slaves of God and apostles—that is followers, messengers, disciples-- of Jesus Christ .  Some are ordained into these ministries as adults but all are commissioned by baptism to live as disciples and messengers of Jesus, as slaves of Christ. We belong to the Lord. We have been bought by God in the outpouring of His Son’s blood on the cross.

Do I take seriously my baptismal call to be a messenger of Christ by the way I live my life? Do I realize that, by my baptism into Christ, I, too, am called to be generous, just and holy, to live moderately, temperately and hospitably? Or do I shrug off these, and other Christian, challenges as applicable only to ordained bishops and cardinals, ordained priests and deacons?