Humble Leadership

As 6th century Rome started to fall apart and he became pope, St. Gregory the Great wrote one of his great scriptural commentaries called the Moralia, or a Commentary on the Book of Job. Gregory ends his commentary with some humble words that reveal someone who is not afraid to know himself. He’s a humble man, and  we need humble leaders today. I simplify his words, not distorting them, I hope:

“Now that I have finished this work, I have to look at myself. We are so complex, even when we try speaking the truth. Let me go from the forum of words to the senate house of my heart, to take council about myself.

I don’t want to speak anything evil or speak poorly about what is good.

I wish my words please the One is good.  Yet, can I claim I have spoken no evil at all? Have I spoken less well than I should, perhaps? When I look within, pushing aside leafy words and branches of arguments, and examine my deepest intentions, I know I intend to please God, but has some desire for human praise crept in? Has it intruded into my simple desire to please God?

Later, much later, I may realize this. Often, our intentions to please God are joined by a secret yen for human praise. Self-righteously, we even use God’s gifts to please others.

So in my commentary I reveal God’s gifts, but let me confess my wounds too. Let me instruct the little ones by my words, but let others take pity on my weakness. I offer help to some and seek help from others. As I tell some what to do, I open my heart to others to admit what they should forgive.  I give medicine to some, but do not hide my wounds from others. My reader will have more than paid me back if, for what he hears from me, he offers his tears for me.”

Blaming Leaders

It’s easy to blame leaders, and we do it all the time. The parade of world leaders speaking at the UN this week offers some easy targets.

St. Augustine, in a sermon on the Good Shepherd, calls church leaders to be like Jesus and warns them not to lead the sheep astray.  When they are like Jesus they are “in the one Shepherd, and in that sense they are not many but one. When they feed the sheep it is Christ who is doing the feeding.”

And so we must pray for good leaders “May it never happen that we truly lack good shepherds! May it never happen to us! May God’s loving kindness never fail to provide them!”

But Augustine goes further and says we must do more than pray, we ourselves must be “good sheep,”  because “if there are good sheep then it follows that there are good shepherds, since a good sheep will naturally make a good shepherd.”

Do we get the leaders we deserve? In blaming them, are we also blaming ourselves? Add to a prayer for good shepherds, a prayer for good sheep.