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“Stewards of God-given Talents”
God is ever so generous with each of His creatures, and especially with us, human beings. He has lavished on us material, physical, intellectual, affective, and spiritual gifts. The secret to be happy with what the Lord has given us is to make the most of His gifts and opportunities.
God’s gifts are like seeds laden with potentials. It is for us to discover these potentials and make them bear fruit by using them with creativity, a sense of responsibility, and Christian love. At the end of our life we will be asked to account for the way we used such gifts. On that day, blessed shall we be if we will be able to show that all those potentials have become a wonderful reality. Let us offer this Eucharist in thanksgiving for the gifts we have received from the Lord and for the grace to use them in ways that please Him.
Today’s Gospel passage is known as “The Parable of the Talents” and emphasizes the need for enterprise and a sense of responsibility. This is the practical way of preparing for the “return of the Master” to whom all will have to render an account.
A proclamation from the holy Gospel according to St. Matthew (Mt 25:14-30). Glory to you O Lord.
Jesus told his disciples this parable: “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one – to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
Immediately, the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.
After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, ‘Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’
Then the one who had received two talents also came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two talents. See, I have made two more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’
Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter. So out of fear, I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.’ His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter? Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’”
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (ccc)
#546. Jesus’ invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching. Through his parables he invites people to the feast of the kingdom, but he also asks for a radical choice: to gain the kingdom, one must give everything. Words are not enough, deeds are required. The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received? Jesus and the presence of the kingdom in this world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to “know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven”. For those who stay “outside”, everything remains enigmatic.
#1880. A society is a group of persons bound together organically by a principle of unity that goes beyond each one of them. As an assembly that is at once visible and spiritual, a society endures through time: it gathers up the past and prepares for the future. By means of society, each man is established as an “heir” and receives certain “talents” that enrich his identity and whose fruits he must develop. He rightly owes loyalty to the communities of which he is part and respect to those in authority who have charge of the common good.
#1937 These differences belong to God’s plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular “talents” share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods; they foster the mutual enrichment of cultures:
I distribute the virtues quite diversely; I do not give all of them to each person, but some to one, some to others. …I shall give principally charity to one; justice to another; humility to this one, a living faith to that one. …And so I have given many gifts and graces, both spiritual and temporal, with such diversity that I have not given everything to one single person, so that you may be constrained to practice charity towards one another. . . . I have willed that one should need another and that all should be my ministers in distributing the graces and gifts they have received from me.
True Life In God Messages
May 5, 2001
…listen! have the rays of the sun in its glory or the glow of the moon ever overshadowed My Love I have for you? for the sake of My Name and for the sake of the Love I have for you, I have shown Myself to all of you; into your room I have come to visit you with My Divine Presence; sometimes I have come as a fragrance of myrrh, at other times I swirled as the smoke of incense, perfuming you and your room; have I not appeared as a ray of light in your heart as well? My glorious Presence is everywhere; I fill the earth with My Love, and how many times have I not left My Throne, stooping over you, blowing secret kisses on you? come, all you who yearn discipline, come and learn how to acclaim Me not only by words, but by good acts of love; let your tongue speak of Me, of My Divinity, of He who is First and Last, of He who fathered you, of He who embellished you and turned you into a cathedral; deprive Me not of this joy;
I have graciously allowed you to grow in My House; so instil some joy and gladness into Me by saying the 'Our Father' in the manner My Father taught it to My daughter; do not be as the scattered bones of Ezekiel's vision, but be filled with the glory of My Holy Spirit that I had conferred to My disciples and grow in use while you fade out with misuse, never ceasing to call on My Name to revive your fidelity and instil in you My vivifying substance;
have you ever heard the parable of the talents?[1] have you not noticed how My House[2] is summoning all of you to enrich His House? have you not noticed that this is a time of reckoning and proving your fidelity?
I have been conferring to all of you sanctifying graces during these anointed years; the poor have received as well as the rich; I have not deprived anyone; but the Master of the House now asks you to come forward to prove your faithfulness to Him so that He may tell you: "well done, good and faithful soul, you have shown you can be faithful in small things, then I will trust you with greater; come and join in your Master's happiness!"
do not disappoint your Master and oblige Him to tell you: "what have you done for Me? I have not seen any good works from you;" virtuous you can become too if you truly repent and open your heart to Me so that I pour healing ointment in you; do not be cut off from Me, allow Me to fill your mind with My Presence and My Heritage will be yours; overwhelm Me with joy and grow tall and strong like an ivory tower;
therefore, do not be surprised when I said: "I will descend in the valley to see if My vines are budding and if their blossoms are opening;" why are some of you dismayed at My inquiries? are you, perhaps, royal House of Mine, pursuing the wind?[3] for if you are, wind you will become; I am true to the greatness of My Mercy and to deliver you from your scorching apostasy, My child,[4] I have, and am still sending you unceasingly the Holy Spirit who deifies you, uniting you to Me;…
Making the Most of God’s Gifts
All of God’s gifts are beautiful and pre-cious. They are so many, far beyond our counting, for God is always immensely generous in lavishing His blessings upon us.
For our part, our first duty is to become aware of them. Denying God’s gifts or hiding them is not humility, but a very impoverishing form of moral blindness.
On the other hand, once we become aware of the gifts we have received from the Lord, we should not boast about them, as if they were our doing, nor should we take them for granted as something that God “owed us.” The proper attitude toward the favors of the Lord is that of Mary’s, as we see it splendidly expressed in the opening of her Magnificat: it is honest and grateful appreciation of these gifts as signs of God’s love for us. (See Lk 1:46-49.)
But, in addition to acknowledging them as coming from the Lord, we also have to utilize these gifts according to His will, i.e., with wisdom and creativity. God – who is ever so generous and trusting – will ask us to account for the way in which we have used His gifts.
What we shall have to account for is not any big sum of money entrusted to our enterprise. It is not only and simply the way we used our physical, intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual faculties, and the numberless opportunities to do good to others offered us by the Lord. The most important item of our accountability will be our very “self,” God’s basic and most precious gift to us. This means that, in addition to having to account for what we did to others, we shall be specially accountable for what we did with ourselves.
God has implanted in each of us the potential to become a saint, to be a living example and an instrument of His saving and sanctifying love. The decisive question will always be, “Did we do our best to become one? . . .” Only a positive answer will entitle us to hear the invitation, “Come, share your Master’s joy!” (Mt 25:21)
Ref.: p.4, Euchalette, 13 November 2011, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr A.
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