AUGUST 11th 2013. NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
GOSPEL: LUKE 12:32-48
From a homily by
Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio.
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Don Fabio’s
homily follows the Gospel.
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GOSPEL:
Luke 12:32-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock,
for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.
Sell your belongings and give alms.
Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out,
an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
“Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table,
“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock,
for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.
Sell your belongings and give alms.
Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out,
an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
“Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table,
and proceed to wait on them.
And should he come in the second or third watch
And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in
this way,blessed are those servants.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”
Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”
And the Lord replied, “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward
whom the master will put in charge of his servants
to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so.
Truly, I say to you, the master will put the servant in charge of all his property.
But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’
and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk,
then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour
and will punish the servant severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful.
That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will
but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly.
Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect,
the Son of Man will come.”
Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”
And the Lord replied, “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward
whom the master will put in charge of his servants
to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so.
Truly, I say to you, the master will put the servant in charge of all his property.
But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’
and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk,
then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour
and will punish the servant severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful.
That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will
but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly.
Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus
Christ.
Kieran’s
summary . . . Jesus asks us to be constantly ready to encounter him in the most
startling ways and at the most unexpected times. How do we behave when life
springs its surprises on us? Are we thrown into confusion? Or do we accept the
tribulations of life with serenity? What is the secret of being ready for what
life throws at us? Jesus gives us the answer at the very beginning of the reading! He
says, “Do not be afraid any longer,
little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.” Once we have founded our existence on the fact of
being children of God, then we are placed in an ordered relationship with
everything else in creation. Jesus speaks of the faithful and prudent
servant who knows how to administer the goods that have been entrusted to him
by the master. These two virtues have a definite order of priority. We must
first of all be faithful to the Lord.
We must found our existence on a relationship of intimacy with him. It is only then, once this relationship is in
place, that we can have the prudence
to administer the goods that the Lord entrusts to us. If we abandon ourselves
to the Lord, then he abandons his goods into our hands to be distributed to
others. Too often we take the opposite approach to the problems of life! We are
confronted by a crisis and we try to do everything rational and prudent to
resolve the problem. Later, when all else has failed, we beg the Lord for help!
The correct approach is to live a life of daily attachment to the Lord, a life
of complete abandonment to the will of God. When problems arise, entrust them
to the Lord, and then tackle them with prudence, never losing trust in the
providential care of God.
Like the
Israelites on the night of the Passover, we must be ever ready to encounter the
saving action of the Lord!
It is always better to read the longer version of the Gospel reading each
Sunday. The more of God’s word we hear the better! The Gospel begins with
Jesus’ exhortation to seek the purses that do not wear out, the treasure that
is inexhaustible. We are asked to have the wisdom of the servant who knows how
to wait for his master, who knows how to be ready for the moment of reckoning.
When the master returns from the wedding, we are asked to be diligent servants
who are ready to open the door for him. We are to have our loins girded and
lamps lit. What do these peculiar instructions mean? They are the preparations
one makes when one is ready to depart at any time of the day or night. This was
exactly how the Israelites were asked to wait on the night of the Passover.
Applied to our situation in the twenty-first century, it means that we must be
ever-vigilant, with our eyes and ears open, hearts ready to meet the Lord! We must
wait for him, ready to serve him, but when we get to know him we will discover
that it is he who serves us!
One of the
illusions of life is the tendency to think that there is some point of arrival
in life, such as a particular position, a particular state of financial
security, a particular social status. In reality, life has no point of arrival.
We must be ever ready for the surprises of the Lord; ever ready for
transformation and growth.
Sometimes we have the tendency to think that it is possible to reach a
state of existence where everything is stable and secure. We look forward to
the day of our marriage, not realizing the challenging journey that only begins
on that day. We think that when we find that perfect job, or when the mortgage
is finally paid, then everything will be relatively easy. One of the great
illusions of our existence is the conviction that there is a point of arrival in life. Instead, life involves constant change
and vigilance. But this should not be a motive for tension or disappointment.
Rather, the very vitality of life consists in this fact. We must be ever-ready
to change, grow and be transformed. Life is full of wonderful surprises, but we
retain a nostalgia for stability, for maintaining the status quo. Life without
variation resembles death. Death is the one place where there are no taxes to
be paid, no noisy neighbours to disturb us, no bothersome phone calls to
respond to. Our ideals in life are static and motionless, but the Lord calls us
to constant evolution, to the continual discovery of what is real, to be ever
ready to encounter the Lord. Jesus goes on, “Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house
be broken into. You also must be
prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” How do
we react when we are surprised by something unexpected? Sometimes, when life
springs its surprises on us, we are thrown into utter confusion. If we were
truly prepared for our encounter with the master, then we would not be so badly
thrown by the events of life.
We
are all asked to be faithful and prudent. First of all we must be faithful to
the Lord, then we must be prudent with the goods that the Lord entrusts to us. Because I have abandoned myself into his hands,
then he abandons his riches into my hands to be administered to others.
Peter then asks, “Lord, is this parable
meant for us or for everyone?” This
question prompts Jesus to focus on the servant who is entrusted with particular
authority in the household. Priests and bishops certainly have positions of
authority in the church, but all of us have authority over others to some
degree. All of us are asked to to minister to others. Jesus speaks of the faithful and prudent servant who is placed in charge of the property. “Fidelity” applies to the relationship of
the servant with his master, whilst “prudence”
applies to the relationship of the servant with the other servants to whom he
has the task of distributing the food. Prudence is a virtue that must be
possessed by every father of a family, and by anyone who has the task of
administering the goods of this world. It is vital to note that prudence is a
virtue exercised by someone who has something already entrusted to him. The relationship of fidelity must come
first; then comes the requirement to be prudent. When I have a relationship of
fidelity with the Lord, then I abandon myself to him, and he entrusts his goods
to me to be distributed among others. Because
I have abandoned myself into his hands, then
he abandons his riches into my hands. Often, when we are presented with a
problem, we struggle to understand and solve the problem on our own initiative,
and it is only later, when we have worked out a solution, that we entrust the full
resolution of the problem to the Lord. Instead we should first have a relationship with God, first have intimacy with God, and then seek to discern a solution to the problem. The other approach
to the problem is the “accident and emergency” approach. But if we put
attachment to God before prudence, then how differently would the resolution
unfold!
If we root our
existence on the fact of being children of God, then we can never be confounded
by the surprises of life. But if we have not made space for God in our lives,
then that space will be filled by other things that seek to compensate for the
absence of the Lord
This entire text begins with the words of Jesus, “Do not be afraid any longer,
little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.” If we truly
were in possession of the Kingdom, then all of these other problems raised by
the text would not emerge. Why are we such terrible parents, such terrible
priests, such terrible friends and such terrible workers? Because we do not possess the Kingdom of Christ and this leads us
to be overly attached to material things, causing us to become anxious and
disordered. When we found our existence primarily on the fact of being children
of God, primarily on the fact of being the little flock that is tenderly cared
for by him, then we have the serenity of someone who has already passed the
most fundamental examination of his life! My identity has come from God and I
know exactly what I must do in any given situation, no matter how unexpected or
terrible it might be. Prudence becomes a natural process. Very often the
disorder in our lives derives from the fact that the truth of our identity has
been obscured. We then become overly attached to material things, our
profession in life, our social status. We begin to think that prayer is
something that can be put off to another time. In the parable, the servant who
loses sight of his relationship with his master begins to eat and get drunk. In
the same way, if we do not found our existence and our very being on God, then
we seek meaning and compensation elsewhere. A vaccuum cannot exist in the
spiritual life. If I have not made a place for God in my life, then I will seek
an alternative elsewhere to fill that void within me.
All of us are called to great
responsibility, to administer to others in the name of the Lord. This
responsibility must spring from my relationship with God. If the relationship
with God is missing then my administraton of the goods of the Lord will be
reduced to bureaucracy, deception and bad government.
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