Responsible Steward: Take heart to share your talents and gifts to the Church

 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A

            Matthew 25:14-30 

The first reading describes a gracious wife and a mother, faithfully dedicated to her maternal commitment. She practiced fidelity with responsibility in the marital setting of her time and culture. The good mother who is a responsible steward will be praised by the husband and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord.

The second reading, Paul continues his reply to the Thessalonians about the Parousia (the final coming of Christ). Stay sober and alert for we do not know when will God come to us. Let us be prepared, always ready to welcome the Lord in our heart and in our life. As responsible steward let us ask for the grace of openness to welcome God anytime and at anyplace in our life.

Today’s gospel makes it very clear that far more is expected of us. This parable is more than an exhortation to use well our qualities. It is about the Kingdom, which is entrusted to us as the Master leaves for a long journey. When he returns, he expects his servants to have put to work the riches he had entrusted to them. The first two risked and doubled what they had been given. They were praised for their commitment to their master, to the Kingdom. The third servant, who was afraid of the master, lost even the one talent he had.

We are expected to make an active and positive contribution to the work of the Kingdom and to the Christian community as the Body of Christ. In practice, that might mean taking an active part in our Church, in our parish, volunteering for social justice initiatives etc. In this trying times, we can hear and see the news about those people who needs help as they struggle in life, we can perhaps ask, do I acknowledge my talents to help others? What have I done to be called as responsible steward of God’s gifts or talents?

       Finally, a talent is everything that makes the community grow and which reveals the presence of God. When one is closed in oneself out of fear of losing the little that one has, one loses even that little that one has, because love dies, justices is weakened, sharing disappears. Instead, the person who does not think in self and gives himself to others, grows and, surprisingly, receives everything which he has given and much more. “Because anyone who finds his life will lose it, but anyone who loses his own life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39) The more you give, the more you received.
Take heart to share your talents and gifts to the Church.

“On this rock I will build my church.”

                                                            Mt 16:13-19.

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB 



Commentary of the day : 

Saint Leo the Great (?-c.461), Pope and Doctor of the Church 
Sermon on the anniversary of his ordination as bishop 

“On this rock I will build my church.”

Brothers, when it comes to fulfilling my duties as bishop, I discover that I am weak and slack, weighed down by the weakness of my own condition, while at the same time, I want to act generously and courageously. However, I draw my strength from the untiring intercession of the almighty and eternal Priest who, like us but equal to the Father, lowered his divinity to the level of man and raised humankind to the level of God. The decisions he made give me a just and holy joy. For when he delegated many pastors to care for his flock, he did not abandon watching over his beloved sheep. Thanks to that fundamental and eternal help, I in turn have received the protection and support of the apostle Peter, who also does not abandon his function. This solid foundation, on which the whole of the Church is built, never grows tired of carrying the whole weight of the building that rests on it.

The firmness of faith, for which the first of the apostles was praised, never fails. Just as everything that Peter professed in Christ remains, so what Christ established in Peter remains… The order willed by God’s truth remains. Saint Peter perseveres in the solidity that he received; he has not abandoned the governance of the Church, which was placed in his hands. That, my brothers, is what that profession of faith inspired by God the Father obtained in the heart of the apostle. He received the solidity of a rock, which no assault can shake. In the entire Church, Peter says every day: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Amare et servire: "Why do you speak to them in parables?"

Amare et servire: "Why do you speak to them in parables?": Mt  13:10-17. T he disciples approached Jesus and said, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" He said to them in reply, &...

Amare et servire: "Why do you speak to them in parables?"

Amare et servire: "Why do you speak to them in parables?": Mt  13:10-17. T he disciples approached Jesus and said, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" He said to them in reply, &...

"Why do you speak to them in parables?"

Mt 13:10-17.

The disciples approached Jesus and said, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"

He said to them in reply, "Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.

To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because 'they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.'"

Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: 'You shall indeed hear but not understand you shall indeed look but never see.

Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.'

But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.

Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it".

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB 


Commentary of the day : 

Saint Justin (c.100-160), philosopher, martyr 
First Apology, 1.30-31 

"Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see"

To the Emperor Hadrian, Augustus Caesar, and to Verissimus, his son, the philosopher, and to Licius, the philosopher, and to the Senate and all the Roman people, on behalf of people of every race who are hated and persecuted unjustly: I, who am one of them, Justin of Neapolis [Nablus] in Syria of Palestine, address this discourse...

The objection is put forward that the one whom we call Christ is no more than a man, born of man, that the miracles we ascribe to him are caused by magic art, and that he has successfully passed himself off as Son of God. Our demonstration will not rest on rumors but on prophecies made before the event in which we cannot but believe: for we have seen, and continue to see, the realization of what had been predicted ...

Among the Jews there were prophets of God through whom the prophetic Spirit announced beforehand future events. Their prophecies were diligently kept in the form in which they had been uttered by successive kings of Judah, in books written in Hebrew by the very hand of those prophets...

Now, in the books of the prophets, we read that Jesus, our Christ, must come, that he will be born of a virgin, will reach manhood, will heal every sickness and infirmity, will raise the dead, that, misunderstood and persecuted, he will be crucified, will die, will rise again and ascend to heaven, that he is and will be recognised as Son of God, that he will send out certain men to proclaim these things in all the world and that it will be the pagans, above all, who will believe in him. These prophecies were made five thousand, three thousand, two thousand, a thousand, eight hundred years before his coming since the prophets followed one after the other from generation to generation. 

Commentary of the day : 

Saint Anthony of Padua (c.1195-1231), Franciscan, Doctor of the Church 

Sermons for Sundays and feasts 


"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son"

The Father has sent us his Son who is the “good and perfect gift” (Jas 1:17). He is the better gift that nothing can surpass, the perfect gift to which nothing can be added. Christ is the better gift because he whom the Father thus bestows on us is his Son, sovereign and eternal like himself. Christ is the perfect gift because, as the apostle Paul says, he “gives us everything else along with him” (Rm 8:32)… He has given us the one who is “the head of the Church” (Eph 5:23). He could not have given us more. Christ is the perfect gift because, in giving him to us, the Father has brought all things to their perfection through him.

“The Son of Man,” says Saint Matthew, “has come to save that which was lost” (18:11). This is why the Church cries out: “Sing to the Lord a new song” (Ps 97[98]:1) as though to say: O people of faith, you whom the Son of Man has saved and renewed, sing a new song, for you must “discard what is old now that new crops have been given you” (Lv 26:10). Sing, because the Father “has worked wonders” when he sent us his Son, his perfect gift in its entirety. “In the sight of the nations he revealed his justice” (Ps 97[98]:2) when he gave us his perfect gift, his only Son, who justifies the nations and brings all things to perfection.

"Let there be light"

The light of Christ will surely guide us in all our endeavors.

May this beautiful Christmas season reminds us of the joy of having Christ in our life. A life filled with joy is always in communion to Him despite the challenges we encounter. May He (Jesus) merit all our good deeds and fill us with the grace we need day by day. The invitation of the Child in the manger is for us to extend our generosity to others in a very special way and that our child-like prayers with humility can surely merit our good deeds.