Gospel: Luke 7:1-10

Meditating on the passage from Luke's Gospel, which speaks of Jesus healing the centurion's servant at Capernaum, we can consider about the two attitudes of a person who rules. Before all else this person must love his people. The elderly Jews say to Jesus: he deserves what he asks for because he loves our people. A ruler who does not love cannot govern. At most he can only make a bit of order, but he cannot govern.

A leader must also be humble like the centurion in the Gospel, who could have boasted of his power to get Jesus to come to him, but he was a humble man and instead said to the Lord: do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. With humility he said: only say a word, and my servant will be healed.

These are the two virtues of a ruler, and this is what the word of God inspires in us: to love people and humility.

Thus, every man and woman who assume the responsibility of guiding should ask themselves these two questions: “Do I love my people, so that I may better serve them? And am I humble enough to hear the opinions of others so as to choose the best way to comply with the responsibility entrusted from God to me?”.