Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Lesson: Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31
Epistle: 1 Thes 5:1-6
Gospel: Mt 25:14-30
The Parable of The Talents or Minas by Willem de Poorter
A common charge laid up against Catholic Christians is that we preach a “works-based salvation”. It is sometimes easy to understand how one could get this false impression of Catholics, especially during Lenten exhortations by the pastor to commit to devoting one’s “time, talent, and treasure” (what a ghastly phrase!) to the parish initiatives of the coming year. A perennial danger in preaching to the converted is to overemphasize the response to grace at the expense of almost ignoring or discounting the irreplaceable gift of the grace freely given, just as one can overemphasize the gift of grace offered and neglect the responsibility of the faithful to multiply this gift within themselves and others. Regardless of the emphasis, that responsibility exists, for as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel!” Having received the gift of faith from Our Lord, Saint Paul and all Christians are called to set that gift, along with any others we have received from God, at work in the world.
In today’s Gospel, this admonition is laid out most clearly by in the preaching of Jesus:
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.'"
Among the Church Fathers, Saint Jerome is one of those who interprets the man with the five senses as a figure for all of us who have received from God the power of knowing the natural world, and who set that power (our senses and reason) to the pursuit of deeper knowledge of God Himself, who invites us to this knowledge by the gift of faith. Jerome says, “He that had received five talents, that is, having received his bodily senses, he double his knowledge of heavenly things, from the creature understanding the creator, from earthly unearthly, from temporal the eternal.”
This does not mean it is incumbent upon believing Christians to gain theology degree or attain to mystical heights in prayer. It simply means that all Christians have a responsibility to set our intellect and reason to work in knowing God as best we as able and bringing others to that same knowledge of God through our example and teaching. Saint Gregory emphasizes this by saying, “There are also some who though the cannot pierce to things inward and mystical, yet for their measure of view of their heavenly country they teach rightly such things as they can, what they have gathered from things without, and while they keep themselves from wantonness of the flesh, and from ambition of earthly things, and from the delights of things that are seen, they restrain others also from the same by their admonitions.”
Saint Gregory presses this dual evangelization by preaching and way of life further in his interpretation of the servant who receives two talents. The saint tells us that, “There are some who by their understanding and their actions preach to others, and thence gain as it were a twofold profit in such merchandise. This their preaching bestowed upon both sexes is thus a talent doubled.”
Just as the figure of the servant who is given five talents is a figure of the human being whose natural reason has been enlightened by faith to know, love, and serve God, so the servant entrusted with two talents is a figure of the Christian who possesses the capacity to both preach the Word and to live it, so as to enkindle faith in others by this dual example. The Word we preach will be ineffectual if it is not made credible by the witness of our lives. Likewise, the witness of a morally upright life will do little to bring others to know Christ if we neglect to preach the Word and make confession of the cause of our hope. This latter failure Saint Gregory identifies with the servant who receives who one talent: “To hide one’s talent in the earth is to devote the ability we have received to worldly business.” We need not be professional evangelists, but neither can we exempt ourselves from our responsibility to preach the Gospel and actively work to “make disciples of all nations”.
What practical lessons might be draw from the Gospel? Two brief reflections come to mind:
We have received great gifts from God, even if they do not appear great according to a worldly calculation. It is easy to become discouraged or to discount oneself because we feel that we do not possess mighty natural talents, ability, or charisma to place at the service of the Lord. Or, we might feel discouraged that the course our life has taken precludes fully devoting one’s talent to the Gospel. This is not how God sees our talents. Yes, we should endeavor to employ our natural gifts for the love of God, but this is a tertiary reading of this Gospel. Of much greater import is that we use the gift of our reason to know and love God, and then to share that however we can, not however we might have done so if life were different.
The servant who is condemned is ruled by discouragement and fear. When we contemplate our own gifts and how they are to be employed for God, we should recognize that these feelings, when they arise, are of the Devil, and not allow our motivations to be guided by them. In these instances, we should reflect on the point above, remembering the great gifts we have received from God in the form of our reason, our faith, and our ability to perform moral actions, and let this engender within us feelings of love, devotion, gratitude, and courage. It is possible to make good return on all of these gifts, not only every day, but even at every moment of our lives.