Greetings on this the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; 1 Thes 5:1-6; Mt 25:14-30
Notes: OCIA today as presenter preparing them for the Rite of Acceptance.
Summary
In our readings today we encounter ourselves. Who are we and how do we live our lives? The first reading shows us the example of a good wife. These thing she does out of love. Some men may not see wife’s actions correctly but that is her purpose and aim, to help you excel in love. She is beyond valuable pearls. She has loving hands. She reaches out, she extends herself to all for the benefit of husband and family and the poor. Time to recalibrate, men, recalibrate. Taking the readings together, with our gospel portion today, we can see Jesus uses marketplace logic to help us understand the one talent we all have. The servants were entrusted with ‘the possessions’.
What does God possess but love? What does God cherish but love?
For those who have many talents and/or great capacity for love they should do so. Each of their ordinary talents are ordered toward the expression of divine love. But every one of us can love. This is the measure of talents. Love: the first of all talents. It is your brilliance. Scatter your love everywhere.
Reflection
We are fast approaching the end of the liturgical year and a new beginning. Whatever talents we have, we should spend them ordered to love.
Personal Reflection
I find the best expression of my ministry is to listen to others as the work through difficulty and questions. My love talent is to listen to others. What is yours?
First Reading
When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls. Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize. She brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her a reward for her labors, and let her works praise her at the city gates.
Responsorial
Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Blessed are you who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways! For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.
Second Reading
For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.
Gospel Acclamation
Remain in me as I remain in you, says the Lord. Whoever remains in me bears much fruit.
Gospel
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.
Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry