Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Saturday of the 21st Saturday of Ordinary Time, Year I
September 2, 2023
1 Thes 4:9-11, Ps 98, Mt 25:14-30
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- Today we have the last reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel in the liturgical cycle. In the 24th and 25th Chapters of this Gospel, we ponder parables about the end of life as an indication about how to live now. On Wednesday, we had the parable of the faithful and prudent steward who treats others the way the Master would expect. Yesterday we had the parable of the wise virgins, which show us how to long with love for the God’s coming. Today we have the Parable of the Talents, in which we see the incredible trust and generosity of God who gives his treasures for us to invest as we await his return at the end of our life. The word “talent” refers to a weight of silver or gold and was tantamount to 6,000 days wages, 16+ years of work. For someone who in today’s money makes $100/day ($12.50/hour), it’s the equivalent of $600,000. So the three characters in the Parable had received $3 million, 1.2 million and $600,000 dollars. All had received a great deal. How pleased God was at the response of the first two servants, who used what God gave and gave it back to him in full, investing and getting a return on every penny. It wasn’t so much what they had received, but how they used it, and both received in essence the same reward: entrance into the joy of their Lord and the trust to be given even greater responsibilities. The third servant, on the other hand, out of fear, buried his gifts, squandered the trust, and sought to blame the Master rather than take responsibility. He said that the Master reaps where he hasn’t sown, but he sowed the talent in this servant as the servant met it with unreceptive soil. He was sentenced to the darkness, like the hole in which he had buried his gift.
- When we hear about “talents,” we often ordinarily think about what distinguishes us from others — our ability to play musical instruments or sports, our academic aptitude or practical know-how, etc. — but the greatest talents we’ve received are those we have received with others. We might have received more or less than others, but we’ve all received in abundance gifts from God. We’ve received the gift of life, of faith, and of hope. We’ve received the gift of Baptism, of Confirmation, of God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Penance, of the Word of God, and of the commandments. We’ve received the gift of our family and friends. We’ve received the gift of the Church and the example and intercession of the saints. How are we investing these greater gifts? God wants us to be bold with them, not to be afraid like the third servant!
- Today, however, based on today’s first reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, I’d like to ponder two particular talents God has given us that he wants us to invest. St. Paul mentions the gift “to work with your own hands.” As we’ll have a chance to focus on more on Monday, which is Labor Day, God has given us before the Fall the capacity to work, to increase and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, to have dominion over other creatures. These are extraordinary gifts from which we’re called to make returns as good and faithful servants. St. Paul was an incredibly hard worker, not only crisscrossing the ancient world to plant the Gospel, but also still working as a tentmaker wherever he went, because he saw work with his own hands truly as we’re supposed to, as a gift.
- The second is the gift of the opportunity for charity. In his first Letter to the Corinthians, he calls us to “strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts” and then he shows us a “still more excellent way,” the way of Christian agape or charity. The Alleluia versicle we had before the Gospel — which always provides a hermeneutical key for what comes afterward — is to love others as God has loved us first. God’s extraordinary love for us is a talent we’re called to invest by paying it forward. These three parables we’ve mentioned from the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel are related to a fourth, the Parable of the Judgment, which comes immediately afterward and which we don’t get now in the readings because we focus on it during Lent. Jesus in this Parable says he will reward us for every time we have cared for someone who was naked, a stranger, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned or ill. What a gift, therefore, we have in serving others in love! Everyone God sends us is an investment opportunity for love, which doesn’t mean we should instrumentalize them, but just recognize how much trust God shows us in giving them to us to care for. In today’s first reading, St. Paul praises the Thessalonians for their “fraternal charity,” that they “have been taught by God to love one another.” But he nevertheless urged them “to progress even more.” We’re constantly called to invest “even more” the opportunities we have for charity. It’s essential to our growth in faith. This morning in the Office of Readings, we have one of the most powerful readings of the year, from St. John Chrysostom, which is all about investing the talent we have of what God has given us — both opportunities and material goods — to care for others. He wants us to see not only the occasions we have for loving God, particularly in the Sacrament of the Altar, but also in the disguise of those in need we might meet on the steps or streets. “Do you want to honor Christ’s body?,” he writes. “Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. … Give him the honor prescribed in his law by giving your riches to the poor. For God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts. Now, in saying this I am not forbidding you to make such gifts; I am only demanding that along with such gifts and before them you give alms. He accepts the former, but he is much more pleased with the latter. In the former, only the giver profits; in the latter, the recipient does too. A gift to the Church may be taken as a form of ostentation, but an alms is pure kindness. … Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.” Today the Lord will give us plenty of opportunities to invest this talent of charity.
- The greatest talent of all, we know, is the gift of the Mass, in which we receive God inside and are made capable of becoming God’s good and faithful servants, strengthened by him to invest the rest of the gifts he gives us each day. It’s the means by which we enter into the joy of our Lord as he rejoices to give himself to us. And if we live this well, he will give us greater responsibilities, literally the great responsibility of heaven, where we will be able “even more” to be charitable, through interceding for others, that they, too, may become faithful and prudent stewards, wise bridesmaids and good and faithful servants. Let us receive the gift of Christ today and return it to the Father with interest!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 1 THES 4:9-11
Brothers and sisters:
On the subject of fraternal charity
you have no need for anyone to write you,
for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.
Indeed, you do this for all the brothers throughout Macedonia.
Nevertheless 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 Psalm PS 98:1, 7-8, 9
R. (9) The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.
Let the sea and what fills it resound,
the world and those who dwell in it;
Let the rivers clap their hands,
the mountains shout with them for joy.
R. 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.
R. The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.
Alleluia JN 13:34
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I give you a new commandment:
love one another as I have loved you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 25:14-30
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.’”
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