But you shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that does serve.
Read Chapter 22
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But ye shall not be so. The Arabic has "Let the greater of you be as the least"—that Isaiah , let him among you who wishes to be the greatest, become the least. In this way he shall be the greatest.
Morally, let us learn this parable of Christ, incredible to the world, but in itself most true, and by experience most certain, namely, that the way to exaltation is abasement of self. Do we wish to become greater? Let us become less. God has sanctioned and fixed this way by His eternal law, and therefore Christ was the first-fruits to enter upon it, that we, by the same law, might follow Him, as in Phil. ii8 , 9 , 10 , 11.
Hence S. Francis, a great follower and imitator of Christ, humbled himself to the lowest of all lowness, and wished to be the poorest and vilest of all men; and to a certain saint, a most lofty and splendid seat in heaven was shown, and when he asked whose it was, the answer was given, "It was the seat of one of the great ones among the fallen angels, but it is now reserved for the holy Francis." S. Bonav, chap. vi, Life of St. Francis. The same S. Francis wished his followers to be called "Minores," lest they should presume to become majores. His scribe, S. Francis de Paula, ordered the brethren of his order, to be called not Minores but Minimi. Hence the blessed Magdelena de Pazzi, who has been lately enrolled among the blessed by our holy father, Urban VIII, received the following order from God, "Be of the order of Minim, and the least of them, that thou mayest strive as zealously to be the least as men of this world do to be the greatest." S. Elizabeth, wife of the Landgrave of Hesse, and the daughter of the king, of Hungary, personally, against the remonstrances of her friends, tended the sick and outcast, and said that if there were any position more humble still she would gladly fill it, the more closely to follow Christ, who from the first humbled Himself to be the lowest of men, as Isaiah describes, ch. liii.; for in this consists the crown of virtue and perfection. The like did Hedwig, Duchess of Polonia, and her granddaughter, S. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal. So S. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, sold himself for a slave, for the good of a son of a widow, that he might imitate Christ, and make himself one of the most humble of men. Peter Telonarius did the same, as is related in the Life of S. John Eleemosynarius. This is what the wise man teaches, Ecclus. iii20. See what I have commented thereon.
