Investing the Trust and Gifts of the Master, Thirty-Third Sunday (A), November 18, 2023 (Vigil)

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, Selden, New York
Parish Day of Recollection:
“Faith-filled Gratitude for the Gift of the Lord: A Parish Eucharistic Revival”
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
November 18, 2023
Prov 31:10-13.19-20.30-31, Ps 128, 1 Thess 5:1-6, Mt 25:14-30

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• It’s a great joy for me to celebrate this Mass with you at the end of our Parish Day of Recollection on the Eucharistic Revival, on the vigil of St. Margaret of Scotland’s 75th Anniversary, marking 75 years in which Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords, King of Kings and Savior of the World has taken up his abode here in Selden among you. It’s an incredible gift the Lord has given, one that has been received by generations of faithful here, and one that has strengthened parishioners and families from within to grow in love for God and others and to be inspired to go out as salt, light and leaven and continue Jesus’ loving work of the salvation of the world.
• Today’s Gospel is all about what we do with the Lord’s gifts and especially with the trust those gifts imply. The context of the Gospel is how to prepare for the final exam of life. Every November, as you know, the Church has us focus our attention on the four last things — death, judgment, heaven and hell — so that we might be always prepared for the first two, enter into the third and avoid the fourth. This Sunday is no exception. In the second reading, St. Paul tells us, as he told the Christians in Thessalonika, that “the day of the Lord” — the day of our death or the end of the world, whichever comes first — “will come like a thief in the night … as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.” An expectant mother never knows for sure when contractions will start. Many women —like the worthy wives praised by the Book of Proverbs in today’s first reading — prepare a “go bag” of necessary items for the hospital in mid-pregnancy in case the contractions come prematurely so that they’re ready to go to the hospital at a minute’s notice. St. Paul says we need to prepare in the same way for the contractions of death that lead us from the womb of the earth to the next dimension of life intended by God. Death can come when we least expect it. It could come for some or all of us as fast as today. This reality scares some people, because they fear they won’t be ready, much like students who don’t study regularly fear flunking a pop quiz. But St. Paul calls the Thessalonians and us not to be afraid by telling us what we need to do. “You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness for that day to overtake you like a thief.” He exhorts us, “You are all children of light and children of the day… So let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” He tells us always to have what we need ready, so that we might go with joy to the Father’s house. The question for us is: What do we need to do to be ready, what do we have to have in our “go bag” so as not to be caught off-guard when the contractions for eternal life begin?
• In the Gospel, Jesus answers that question. He gives us a parable about how we are to be judged and how to prepare for it. But in doing so, he tells us so much more about who we are in God’s eyes, where we fit into His plans, and how we should live. The entire history of the world and the vocation of each of us is found in this short story.
• It’s called the Parable of the Talents. Most of us know it well. A rich man going on a journey calls in his servants and entrusts his possessions to them: to one he gave five talents, another two, and the third one. On the man’s return, the servant who had received five gave him ten back; the servant who received two likewise doubled it and gave him four back; but the servant who had received one buried the talent and just gave him back the one at the end. The first two receive the same reward. The Master says, “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.” The one who returned the buried talent, however, received a totally different response. The Master called him “wicked and lazy,” asked why he didn’t at least put it in the bank to gain interest, had the talent taken from him and given to the one with ten, and then had him thrown into the outer darkness, which was an image of the lightless definitive self-alienation we call hell. Whole retreats can be preached on the elements of this parable, but let’s ponder the bigger points.
• Sometimes, in our egalitarian culture, we can object to the fact that the Master entrusted his possessions disparately, according to each servant’s ability. Some can wonder whether there was far greater risk to the servant who had received one losing the little he had than those who received five and two. We have to remember, however, that the word “talent” Jesus used referred to a measurement of weight. One talent of silver was equal to 6,000 days wages or 16-and-two-thirds years of work; in today’s money, if someone made $100 per day, even a servant who received one talent would have had $600,000 to invest. We see the difference in how the first two servants and the third responded to the trust of the master. Jesus says that those who had received the five talents ($3 million) and two ($1.2 million) “immediately went out” and started to make it grow. They both received a one-hundred percent return from their one-hundred percent effort and investment. The parable almost implies that all someone had to do was try, because the conditions for investment were that favorable. The servant who had received the one talent, however, buried that huge weight of silver out of fear, fear to take a risk, fear because the Master reaped where he didn’t sow and gathered where he didn’t scatter. Rather than sensing the confidence given to him by the Master, he was afraid of him, even blaming him and accusing him of being demanding, cruel, and tyrannical. As a result buried himself and his potential along with the talent. God does indeed give to us “according to [our] ability,” but no matter what, each of us has been invested with much. God trusts us. And he wants us to develop his gifts. We might not be as smart as Saint Thomas Aquinas, or as brave as many of the martyrs, or as holy as Saint Margaret of Scotland or Saint Teresa of Calcutta, but God has given us all enormous gifts. None of us is a pauper in the endowment category. And the greatest talents God has given us are spiritual: the gift of Baptism, the Holy Eucharist, our Confirmation, the ability to start anew each Confession, the gifts of Marriage or Holy Orders, the Word of God, so many opportunities for charity, the Crosses with which he caresses us, the intercession of the saints, our friendship with God and our ability to turn to God in prayer, and so much more. We’re called not to waste or bury these treasures, but to invest them, because each of them contains a potential that if we even try, the parable implies, we can’t lose.
• The crucial application that the Lord wants us to make in this month of November as we ponder the last things is to determine whether we have been like the first two servants or like the third. If Jesus were to come right now as a thief in the night and call us to account, would he praise us for having used the gifts he has given us to build up his kingdom, to make his world a much better and more sacred place, to spread his salvific joy to others, or would we recognize in his presence that we’ve really buried most of his gifts, especially the greatest spiritual ones? Have we responded to the unbelievable trust the Lord has shown us in his lavish blessings as a motivation to do good works to the glory of our heavenly Father (cf. Mt 5:16) or have we feared his judgment and done nothing? There are some Christians who, out of fear or a false sense of humility, bury their gifts “under a bushel basket” (Mt 5:15-16). They never take a risk of sharing the faith. They strive not to “lose the state of grace,” not to commit any mortal sins, not to set bad example, not to make any mistakes, but they don’t realize that they may be failing to do the good that God wants. They don’t grow, because the only way one grows in faith, hope and love is through acts of faith, hope and love (with the help of God’s grace). Rather than make the world a better and holier place by living up their vocation as salt, light and leaven, they succumb to the devil’s wiles and make their goal simply not to harm the world or just leave it like they found it. If that’s been our attitude up until now, Jesus gives us this parable in order to provoke in us what he was trying to do with his first hearers: to have us unbury the gifts and start to use them for the purpose for which God entrusted us with them.
• I want to apply these lessons briefly to three contexts. The first is to the World Day of the Poor, which takes place tomorrow. Pope Francis made a powerful connection between Jesus’ Parable and the poor three years ago, when he said in a homily at St. Peter’s Basilica: “The master tells the faithless servant: ‘You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest’ (v. 27).” And he asks: “Who are the ‘bankers’ who can provide us with long-term interest? They are the poor. … The poor are like Jesus himself, who, though rich, emptied himself, made himself poor, even taking sin upon himself: the worst kind of poverty. The poor guarantee us an eternal income. Even now they help us become rich in love.” In other words, the poor are our eternal investors. They help us to become rich when we empty ourselves to care for them. Only what is given away in love can fit through the eye of the needle. This is what characterizes the life of worthy wife in today’s first reading from the Book of Proverbs, who “reaches out her hands to the poor and extends her arms to the needy.” Pope Francis says that we see at the end of the Parable a glimpse of the end of life: “Some will be wealthy, while others, who had plenty and wasted their lives, will be poor. At the end of our lives, then, the truth will be revealed. The pretense of this world will fade, with its notion that success, power and money give life meaning, whereas love – the love we have given – will be revealed as true riches.” This is what was revealed in the life of your patroness, St. Margaret of Scotland, famous for her charity. On her way home from daily Mass she would wash the feet of six poor persons and give them alms. She never refused beggars. And just like loving moms and dads never eat until their children have eaten, she never sat down to eat without first feeding orphans and poor adults around the castle. Her example is a reminder to us of the charity to which we are called.
• The second context is to the celebration of thanksgiving that we will mark on Thursday. Thanksgiving is an annual opportunity for us to reflect on all of the talents, riches, and blessings that God and others have entrusted to us, and to turn to Him and to them and say thanks. The greatest way we say thanks is to invest the gifts of love that have been given, to be transformed by them and to share them lavishly with others. Thanksgiving is a day in which we think not about what we don’t have but about what we do. And we celebrate those gifts at the altar with God and at the dinner table with family, friends, and, if we’re generous and wise, with the poor and those who have nowhere else to go. When it comes to our investment portfolio, thanksgiving — not just the fourth Thursday of November, but regularly — has to be our most important mutual fund, because it helps us to remember our gifts and inspires us to share them.
• The third context is to Jesus in the Eucharist as the source, summit, root and center of our faith. As we pondered throughout this afternoon, for 75 years, Jesus has taken up his abode in the tabernacle of this parish, he has come to feel generations of parishioners with himself, and he has sent them out to love others with the same lavish love with which he loves us. It wasn’t enough for him merely to take on our human nature in the wonder of the Incarnation in Mary’s immaculate womb. It wasn’t enough for him to live a hidden life for three decades and then crisscross the ancient Holy Land preaching, teaching, healing, exorcising and rendering the kingdom of God at hand among them. It wasn’t enough for him to be tortured, crucified and raised. He wanted to give himself for us each day in the Holy Eucharist so that we could be united with him in this world and come to share the Resurrection and Life with him forever. How have we invested this greatest of all talents, this Pearl of Great Price? How do we invest it now? How do we want to invest this gift tomorrow and for the rest of our life? Just like the Lord entrusted his gifts to the servants in today’s Parable, so he entrusts something far more valuable to us, humbly taking on extraordinary vulnerability. If we invest this Eucharistic gift of Jesus well, if we really harness all of the power that Jesus wishes to give us through adoration and communion, then we will become saints.
• Today, as he has done here faithfully over the last 75 years, Jesus blesses us with the treasure of his word and the even greater gift of his Body and Blood. As we prepare to receive him, let us get ready to go out immediately after Mass like the one who received five and two talents to invest that treasure with gratitude, by truly loving and serving others, especially those in greatest need, who will help us to become rich in what alone matters. Then, we pray, at the end of this life, when we meet the Lord face-to-face, he will say to us what he said to the first two servants in the Gospel: “Well done, good and faithful servants. You have been trustworthy in small matters. Now I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your Master’s joy!”

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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