Greetings on this the Saturday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: 1 Thes 4:9-11; Ps 98:1, 7-8, 9; Mt 25:14-30
Notes: In our scripture readings today we have the encouragement to the Thessalonians to live with two guiding principals.
- Live your life in mutual charity … for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.
- Aspire to live a tranquil life, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your own hands.
The first is a ‘continue to do this‘ – to have fraternal love for one another.
The second is a ‘do this instead‘ of a busyness life, a nosybody life and/or a lazy life.
In our gospel portion today, Jesus is expressing this in a more substantial way.
Which do you think the servant with the one talent did with his time, talent and resources? Did he practice fraternal love? Did he live a life of busyness life, a nosy body life and/or a lazy life?
One could surmise that we constantly choose between fraternal love and a lazy life.
Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return?
This is not a minor observation from Jesus, but he is calling out the serious sin of culpability unto the miseries of the collective human experience.
Alternatively, perhaps he was bruised by escapism?
The difficulty of life cannot be met with silence – out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. His response is irrational. Even bank interest would suffice.
We are relational beings (by our very design, even in our reproductive nature).
We are born from relation (Mom, Dad, Ancestors).
We are to live in relation (Family, Children).
We are most human when we are in relations, personal and communal.
Good and faithful servants, don’t waste your life. Share it. Always and in all ways.
When you do, you share your master’s joy.
Come, share your master’s joy.
First Reading
You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.
We urge you, brothers and sisters, to progress even more, and to aspire to live a tranquil life, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you.
Responsorial
The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.
Before the LORD, for he comes,
for he comes to rule the earth;
He will rule the world with justice
and the peoples with equity.
Gospel Acclamation
I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you
Gospel
Five
The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five.
Two
Master, you gave me two talents. See, I have made two more.
One
The one who had received the one talent came forward and said.
I went off and buried your talent in the ground.
Here it is back.
One thing to remember, dear reader, is that one talent can change the world. He could have surpassed the other two, no problem.
Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry