33rd. Sunday of Year
(A)
(Proverbs 31:10-13, 19s, 30s; 1st.
Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30)
Today’s parable was relatively long
and quite detailed, with special emphasis being given to the lot of the servant
who received one talent and did nothing with it. Some people might think that what he did with
the one talent is irrelevant because he was unfairly treated from the beginning
by being given but one talent while others had received much more; and so,
feeling somewhat sorry for this 'poor one talenter', they
harbour a kind of grudge against the master of those servants and don’t really
expect or seek to learn anything from the parable.
However, we should refrain from
allowing our own modern critical propensities and emotional prejudices to have
free rein with this story from long-ago and far away, and try, first of all, to
appreciate the value – in terms relevant to ourselves today -- of the talent in
our parable. One talent was then the
equivalent of 6000 denarii, and a man and his family could live adequately for
one day at the cost of 2 denarii. So you
see that he who received “only one talent” had actually been given sufficient to
provide a man and his family with a living for over 8 years! He had, in fact, been entrusted with a
far-from-insignificant sum of money!!
People of God, have nothing to do
with the prevalent greed and self-love which lead certain vociferous
protagonists to cry foul wherever some seem to have more than others; avoid
those who bristle with pseudo-sympathy for what they like to call ‘under dogs’
who have not -- in their estimation -- been personally endowed with all the
talents, or given all the opportunities and advantages, that others seem to
enjoy. Have nothing to do with such
‘defenders of the downtrodden and the poor’, I say, for without doubt, all of us
have been most generously endowed by God for our privileged calling to bring
forth fruit for God’s glory, and for our own sharing therein which we call
‘eternal life’.
We need, therefore, first of all, to
ask our heavenly Father for wisdom – personified as ‘the perfect wife’ in our
first reading – and then calmly turn our attention to the two faithful servants
of the Gospel so as to learn from their experience.
Their master said to each of them on
bringing their profit 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.
Such words make us all feel glad,
happy for and happy with those servants.
And if we attend more directly to the nature of that happiness, we can
recognize three aspects mentioned or implied in those words:
Since you were
faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share
your master’s joy.’
“You were faithful” evokes the joy,
the peace, the happiness of a good conscience.
“I will give you great responsibilities” implies being able to use one’s
talents and abilities to a still greater extent, which is what we call the
fulfilment of our being. However, even
so great a natural happiness is not able to fully captivate our attention in
this parable because of those last words:
Come, share
your master’s joy!
Ultimately the joy of a good
conscience will lead not only to our natural fulfilment but even -- thanks to
Jesus -- to joys that are beyond our natural capacity, to the eternal joys of
our divine Lord and Master in heaven:
Since you were
faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your Master’s joy.’
Let us now, for just a few moments,
compare those three aspects of happiness and you will realise how wonderful is
that invitation to enter into the master’s joy.
We all know something of the many
and various innocent joys and resultant deep happiness we, as human beings, can
experience at times: sometimes we have the joys of success and achievement; most
of us are deeply grateful for our experience of the peace and contentment of
family life and love; we can appreciate too the happiness of truth discovered
and known, and the thrill of beauty recognized and appreciated. Many such earthly types of joy and happiness
truly delight us and can give us a sense of deep contentment; and yet, some are
also easily linked with sorrow and sadness.
There is a famous song, “Plaisirs d’Amour” which tells of the joys of
love which swiftly pass away, and of its pains and sorrows which endure. That might well be a jaundiced, poetic, point
of view, but, nevertheless, it is part of the reason why so many people these
days opt only for pleasure and eschew love: they want loose relationships, the
pleasures of companionship without any binding commitment, so that if and when
difficulties loom ahead or sorrows arise, they can cut free from the
relationship and seek out some other source of comfort and pleasure that seems
to promise a measure of security -- for a time, at least. Yes, earthly love and family life, though
they are such deep and essential joys for us, can also bring their own quite
particular sorrows and trials: what parents, for example, can escape worrying
about their children’s ‘health, wealth, and happiness’, and those we love dearest can -- at times --
hurt us the deepest. Our work also -- so
necessary for our fulfilment both as human and personal beings – rarely offers
us more than occasional success and limited satisfaction, while such blessings
can be, these days, too often accompanied by concerns about business competition
and the ever-present possibility of personal failure and/or redundancy. And again, our appreciation of and delight in
truth and beauty cries out to be shared with an appropriate companion who is not
always easy to find.
The joy of a good conscience,
however, is not in any way connected with sorrow and is therefore, joy of a far
superior kind; moreover, it leads to another unsuspected joy which can also be
ours: that is, a share in God’s eternal happiness which totally transcends all
earth’s joys. But how can it come about
that we, who know ourselves to be so weak and fragile, are yet capable of
receiving and appreciating something of infinite and eternal happiness? Despite
all the outstanding advances of modern scientific thinking and industrial
techniques, we still can hardly begin to conceive the immensity of the physical
universe that everywhere surrounds us, while the overwhelming majority of its
‘contents’ are almost totally unknown to us … we can only guess at what we think
‘must’ be there … somewhere, somehow!!
How then can our poor hearts and minds expand so as to be able to accept,
appreciate, and respond to the transcendent, spiritual fullness of Divine
Beatitude which can be ours to share in Jesus?
The Psalmist (81:10) gives us the answer:
I am the LORD
your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide;
How shall we open wide our
mouth? Listen again to the Psalmist
(119:32):
I will run the
course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart.
So that is, indeed, the way we can
prepare ourselves to receive the divine happiness that can be ours: to open wide
our mouth by walking, indeed by running,
in the way of God’s commandments; and, as we do so, He gradually enlarges our hearts so
that He might subsequently fill them with the riches of His
blessings:
I am the LORD
your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I
will fill it! (Psalm
81:10)
It has often been derisively
objected against the teaching of eternal happiness, that it must be very
boring. ‘Not that happiness itself is
boring’, such people would add, ‘but surely eternal, everlasting, happiness must
become, eventually, boring’. Let me
counter such a remark with a question: could eternal, everlasting, pain
be found boring? Of course not! … real
pain does not allow anyone sufficient respite ever to think they might be
bored! The cry ‘I am bored’ is a
luxurious expression -- neither logical nor purposeful -- of a spoiled child, or
of an idle adult, indulging his or her self-love. And yet, its derivative ‘eternal life must be
boring’ does induce many, too content with the things of this world, to put
aside any thought of heaven, and it does help to explain why the Church’s
teaching on, and Jesus’ promise of, heaven means so little to unthinking
souls.
Therefore I would like to help you
do a little thinking about heaven now: not intellectual work, so much as
considering, going over, experiences that probably most of you have known
several times in your life.
I want you to simply try to call to
mind one of the happiest experiences of your life. Do you remember how quickly the time passed
by, then? … You were so happy it seemed to last but a moment, though hours,
days, or perhaps even years could be a truer measure of the time involved. Now that gives us a key to the nature of
heavenly happiness! For even though time is earthly -- an
essential part and parcel of creation where things are always changing --
nevertheless, there are occasions, even here on earth, when time seems to fade
away and almost disappear as great happiness floods and fills our mind and
heart. How utterly irrelevant then is
any question of ‘boredom’ with regard to eternity where there can be no
time! Eternity is not endless time,
eternity is timeless: time has no meaning for, no reality in, heaven, before
God’s very Presence. St. Peter tells us
this in a pictorial way in his second letter:
Beloved, do
not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8)
Therefore for those who are called
and being led by the Holy Spirit to share with Jesus in the blessedness of God’s
heavenly and eternal Kingdom, time will – ultimately -- be totally obliterated
by the influx of heavenly and divine joy.
In heaven time is, quite literally, nothing: not only because we
won’t notice it, but because it has no being, no reality in itself; and, most
certainly, it has no place whatsoever in the infinite bliss of God to which we
are invited in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.
People of God: each one of you has
been richly endowed by God and each one of you is unreservedly called, and
seriously offered the chance, to share in God’s eternal blessedness. Don’t think little of the gifts with which
you have been endowed, don’t be fool enough now – or finally, wicked enough --
to ignore a happiness which can transfigure your whole being, making you
eternally fulfilled and happy beyond all imagining! It can, most assuredly, be
yours in Jesus. Therefore, let Him lead you now -- in the Church and by His Holy
Spirit -- so as to be able, ultimately, to enter with Him into the presence of
the Father Who, Jesus assures you, will greet you with those sublimely
fulfilling words:
Well done,
good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you
ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord!
