Readings: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30
Blessed Sunday to you all! Today’s readings come from Proverbs, St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, but we fill focus on another parable from the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.
Christ speaks in parables often throughout the synoptic Gospels, but perhaps mostly prominently in the Gospel of Matthew. He uses them to describe the nature of the kingdom of God, social teaching, and as in this this parable: of his second coming.
Today’s parable is dubbed the “Parable of the Talents.” In this story, a wealthy landowner leaves three servants to watch over his possessions as he leaves for a trip. According to each’s ability he distributes five talents (a weight of gold most likely)to one servant, two to the second, and one to a third. The first two trade with their talents and multiply their amounts by two. The last, in fear, hordes his and buries it to return in whole to its master without risk.
When the landowner returns, he praises the two who multiplied his talents. But when the latter simply unearths his coins, the landowner scolds him. He might have simply placed his talent into a bank to collect interest. He takes the talent back and he rebukes his servant, turning him away.
What are we to make of this?
Christ explicitly tells us that the parable relates to his second coming, but being as we know neither the “day nor the hour” we might also apply this to our deaths, and preparation for ourmeeting the lord.
What are we to take out of this parable in relation to our own mortality?
Who is our landowner? We are certainly servants of God, no? It is immensely clear that the landowner is, of course, Christ. He ascended into heaven and promised he would return. Being as talents were a gold amount worth immensely, the gift that God has given us must also be immense in measure. Ten talents would have been inconceivable to the normal Israelite in the days of Christ, so it must be just as inconceivable.
Our gift was grace. Forgiveness and mercy. Christ granted us salvation and redemption from our sins. Our God gave up himself, the only begotten son of the father, to travel to the depths of human despair and die as our Passover lamb. The gift given to us mere mortals is eternal salvation and the ability to come closer to God through his son’s loving sacrifice.
The first of our two servants were gifted many talents. Much like many of us are granted mercy and grace. They multiplied their talents! They went out into the world and brought back more to their master. How does one multiply mercy and grace?
We do that by listening to the rest of Christ’s teachings! We do that by going out and proclaiming the good news—the evangelion! Christ tasked his apostles to go out and proclaim his death and resurrection, to spread the news that the one and only God was a forgiving and all loving one that would accept the world with open arms. The landowner, Christ, gifted his servants, all of us, with talents, his love and mercy, and promised to return.
What are we to do but seek to multiply his loving mercy? Christ tells us to “turn the other cheek,” and to “pray for those who persecute us.” We must go out and be like Christ. We bring others to him by exemplifying him. Look at the Apostles, who died in all manners of gruesome ways, all to emulate and spread the word. By emulating Christ, we bring others closer to him. By utilizing his own mercy towards us, we actualized grace and bring it to others. We multiply the gifts given to us.
Yet how many of us are like the third servant. How many Catholics take the mercy and do nothing with it. How many Catholics only attend mass on Sundays, and nothing else. They do the bare minimum of going to confession once a year and attend mass on Easter and Christmas. How many do not go out to increase the mercy we have been gifted at the cost of the death of the son of the father? We accept the bare minimum responsibility but do not evangelize?
In an age as important as this one, it is more important than ever that Catholics go out and spread the good news in an increasingly secularizing world. We must not simply accept the greatest gift ever given, we must go out and share it with others to multiply it.
If we look to the great poet Dante, the author of the grand poem The Divine Comedy, he offers a great drama describing his thoughts on the afterlife. At the foot of the ground mountain that he describes Purgatory as, as those who have waited far too long to repent or convert. Their flaw was complacency. Those who simply take and do nothing with their gift fall into the same trap.
We might fear being rebuked by our peers, we might fear not being good enough, but we must remain vigilant and go out to multiply the gifts given to us. We cannot be afraid, as our God is all loving and forgiving, so long as we approach him.
So, we must go out and multiply the gifts given to us. Our gift is one to multiply and bring back to our master: the Lord.
Blessed Sunday to you all
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