The Unworthy

"What is your favorite part about leading others?”

What IS my favorite part about leading others??? Before I can even answer that, I just have to take a minute and recognize, wow, I do lead others. I have been called to lead another person. One of my initial thoughts is a common temptation/lie that we ALL hear and it goes something like this: “Do I deserve to lead? Who am I to be leading them - I barely have a grip on my own life! Look at my faults - how am I to lead another? I am not that knowledgeable - if I just knew a little more about x or y, THEN I could lead someone but until then I am unworthy to lead another … and, therefore, I am not to be a leader.” In a sense, I am “unworthy.” I am not perfect, I do not know more about life than many of the students I serve. I KNOW that I know less about the faith than most of the people I lead - so, God, why am I leading them? And the answer I have found is twofold: it isn’t about how much you “know” to “deserve” to lead someone, and I am merely a tool to bring others to Jesus. And that is consoling. To recognize my poverty. To recognize “it’s not all on me” - and that is okay. It is on Him. And I have also recognized that the poverty I have is not to be an excuse not to be a leader.  

It has been a great gift to me to be able to lead the men entrusted to me here at Catholic Hoos (and even those on the hockey team). God is an incarnational God. What I mean is God decided to enact His plan by BECOMING MAN and He invites us, in our humanity, to participate with Him in His plan for salvation. And that is wild because God could have done it without our help and without becoming a man Himself - but He did! He invites us to help and to lead. I think of Our Mother Mary. I think of St. Joseph. But in a particular way I think of St. Peter. This was a man seen as the Head of the Apostles, constantly speaking for the group as its leader, and even being recognized by Jesus - the Messiah and Lord - to be the Church’s rock and hold the keys to the Kingdom. And despite that, Peter turned from our Lord, rebuking the cross and denying his dearest friend three times. If there was any person not “worthy” of being called a leader, it would be Peter. I am sure before Jesus lovingly reinstated him as the Rock, Peter would have had a thousand reasons why he should not have been a leader: “Lord, depart from me for I am a sinner. I am a mere fisherman - I am not like the Pharisees who know the law, who know the apologetics and all the tenets of the faith. How am I to be a leader when there are more qualified individuals? Choose one of the Pharisees to be your successor. In addition, I betrayed you, even after all my bold claims to be at your side, even unto death. I left you, I turned my back, I sinned.”  But, Peter WAS restored, through mercy, to be the Rock - the leader that Jesus invited him to become. Jesus did not “do it Himself,” He lets Peter be the leader again - He lets us be leaders. 

So my favorite part about leading others is, truly, how humbling it is. Humbling for myself because I have been entrusted to a person even though I am a sinner and I do not have all the answers. And it is humbling to others who may know more than me, but are invited to listen. We are all obviously called to be good and receptive followers, but I often think we fear the gift of leading others. His gift for us, in an incarnational way, is to participate in His plan to lead others to Him despite our capabilities. To lead, not for ourselves or for sin, but for love which is to will the good of another. So, no, I am not worthy of leading, but it is a gift from the Lord I pray to never neglect. I am but a cup, to be poured into by Him, and to hopefully overflow upon those around me. “[Peter] was questioned about his love first and only then were Christ’s sheep (His Church and all its members) entrusted to him” - Saint Augustine 

Ian Rush
Alexandria, VA
Fun fact: I once hit a squirrel with a golf ball and my favorite fruit are blueberries