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.'-Matt 25:23
Friends, God is good, all the time.
"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally, you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues," said Elizabeth Taylor. We can see what she said play out in the gospel today, where we meet Jesus telling an exciting, stunning parable of the talents.
To place the passage in a context, our conception and application of the concepts of talent differ from what pertained to the biblical times. As described in the Bible, talents meant a considerable sum of money with tremendous value to those who possess it. Therefore, in the story, the master entrusted the servants with money of a significant value that should not be wasted or lost.
Well, we learn that two of the servants worked hard to double the value of the talents, but one didn't, though they all had such a long time to have made proper use of the talents. The master called him lazy and useless because he became indifferent and unconcerned about what was concerning to the master.
But where is Lord going with all these details? This is the story about each persons' life. The Christian is redeemed at baptism and given a pure, holy soul to drive our lives, and the expectation is that he will demand it back from us. Therefore, the Lord wants us to extend our life to become useful for others, and that is where the real gain lies. Every good behavior we enact towards others is an increase in the life talent given to us. If we wish our soul to become rich, we must be willing to adorn it with the graces and gratitude, which we receive from God and others whenever we engage in good, whether such graces and gratitude are expressed to our hearing or not.
Sometimes, we tend to remain in our comfort zone, trying our best to stay away from any wrongdoing, but also not caring about anything or anyone else. As demonstrated by the man with one talent, such an attitude can amount to the sin of omission, where we see ourselves doing well without doing good. The real increase in life comes when we step outside our comfort zone and extend ourselves, where doing well also involves doing good to others.
In Luke 9:24, Jesus reminds us that if we want to save our life, we will lose it, but if we're going to lose our life, we will find it. In the first reading, a symbolic woman who is God-fearing in her ways and who shows much concern towards her family and serves them is presented to us as the ideal Christian attitude towards using our talents. She has a lot to do, yet she finds the time to do it all and well to the admiration of her family. The Christian who lives by this attitude pleases the master.
Prayer blessings: Today we learn to bless ourselves with these two prayers- Our help is in the name of the Lord… who made the heaven and earth. Lord come to my assistance…Lord make haste to help me.