Dare Great Things For Christ

Fr. Nathan's series on courageous leaders to inspire us during difficult times! Part 1 discusses the courage of St. Damien of Molokai.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “People will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” It’s a fact that leadership is something that followers bequeath to the one that leads them. Meaning that we who lead in the footsteps of Christ have to gain the trust of those whom we are leading. Few saints embody this better than St. Joan of Arc. She literally lead troops into battle. Because they believed in her – believed in her vision and saw her courage. She led from the heart and her leadership serves as an example for us today.

Have you ever felt like leadership is real burden to you? Today’s reflection focuses on what St. Joseph shows us about how anxiety and difficulty actually spur us on to an ownership that allows God to do his great work. How we deal with anxiety and our way of carrying it through helps us to realize that daring something great for Christ is a privilege and an honor. This is the first part of a series of talks that I am going to be giving on St. Joseph, biblical model for modern leaders.

Choosing to lead is choosing a kind of solitude, a way of life that few people understand. Leadership has its own crosses and its own blessings, and its own rewards. St. Thomas Aquinas in his book, De Regno, in chapter 10, lays out for us the uncommon rewards for the uncommon sacrifices that a leader has to endure for the sake of God.

In our work with the Catholic leader, one of the most sensitive subjects is whether or not they should make money. For some reason making a profit in our business has been associated with guilt and corruption. But is this association always accurate? Is it okay for a Catholic business leader to actually make a profit? And if they do make a profit what are they supposed to do with it? How does Christ qualify our success and how does a profitable Christian business look different from those of the world?