Mother Church invites us to celebrate Sunday, November 19, 2023, as the thirty third Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A. In the Entrance Antiphon we pray: “The Lord says: my plans for you are peace and not disaster; when you call to me, I will listen to you, and I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you. Amen.”
The thirty third Sunday is the last but one Sunday of our liturgical year. The theme of this Eucharist is how well we have exercised our stewardship over the gifts God has given us. We are each given a talent. Have we buried ours for fear of taking the risks necessary to succeed in any enterprise, or have we gone out into the world and invested our God-given talent wisely, thus reaping the inevitable benefits that come to those who actively participate in tilling the Lord’s vineyard, with all the risks and inconveniences that usually accompany such acts?
Let us pray in the course of this Eucharist for the grace to invest the talent God has given us well, especially the talent of love and charity toward the poor and the needy in our midst. With courage, let us go to what Pope Francis calls the peripheries or the frontiers where the poor live and invest our talent of action among them.
On this 33rd Sunday of the year, we celebrate the Seventh World Day of the Poor, a day in which Pope Francis urges us not to turn our faces away from anyone who is poor but rather to stretch forth our hand to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, in other words, translate our love into action in favour of the poor living in our midst. He further reminds us on this day that “If it is true that around the altar of the Lord we are conscious that we are all brothers and sisters, how much more visible would our fraternity be, if we shared our festive meal with those who are in need!”
First Reading: Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31.
A perfect wife—who can find her? She is far beyond the price of pearls. Her husband’s heart has confidence in her, from her he will derive no little profit. Advantage and not hurt she brings him all the days of her life. She is always busy with wool and flax, she does her work with eager hands. She sets her hands to the distaff, her fingers grasp the spindle. She holds out her hand to the poor, she opens her arms to the needy. Charm is deceitful, and beauty empty; the woman who is wise is the one to praise. Give her a share in what her hands have worked for, and let her works tell her praises at the city gates.
Comment
The African Bible tells me that the Book of Proverbs is a collection of various kinds of wisdom sayings in poetic form. Its main purpose is to give instruction primarily to young people, but also to anyone who is interested in learning wisdom from the experience of generations of other people. The wisdom contained in this book covers practically every sphere of life and deals with both secular and religious truths as they touch the daily life of every human being. Although the majority of Israel’s proverbs are secular in outlook, they all have a religious foundation.
The passage selected for our meditation is a poem on the perfect wife. Two aspects of the woman’s virtue are brought out: the fulfillment of her home duties to encourage its prosperity, and her special care of the needy who share in the fruits of her work. These virtues are to be prized more than mere physical appearances.
What do we learn from this reading? All that is said here about the woman is particularly true of the African woman. She is generally the responsible head of the household, doing many of the chores and caring for the members of the family. Most of the hardships our women suffer are for the betterment of others. So our women embody charity, kindness, industriousness and dedication to the family.
Let us pray for our women, who usually bear the brunt of society’s harshness and incomprehension. May the Holy Spirit visit homes in our Archdiocese where a woman has been a victim of domestic or any other type of violence. May he bring peace and reconciliation in our families; where the husband has lost his job – the frequent reason for much of the violence on women – may the Lord bring openings for other job opportunities? We make our prayer through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-6.
You do not need anyone to write to you about the delay and the appointed time for these events. You know that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people feel secure and at peace, the disaster will suddenly come upon them as the birth pangs of a woman in labour, and they will not escape. But you, beloved, are not in darkness; so that day will not surprise you like a thief. All of you are citizens of the light and the day; we do not belong to night and darkness. Let us not, therefore, sleep as others do, but remain alert and sober.
Comment
Saint Paul advises us in this day’s reading what attitude to adopt as we await our Lord’s Second Coming, the Parousia. We must be on guard, he says, for the day will come like a thief in the night. A thief works by night because he thinks that darkness will find the householder unprepared. Our Lord also uses this same image when he says in Matthew 24:34 that if the father of the family had known when the thief would come, he would have been on the look-out so the thief won’t break into his home.
Saint Paul is telling us that the Christian should always be on the watch, for he never knows for sure when the last day of his life will come. The Second Coming of the Lord, the Parousia, will take people by surprise; it will catch them doing good or doing evil. So, let us not postpone repentance to sometime in the future. The time to prepare the way in our lives for the second coming of our Lord is now.
Let us always be alert, in the state of grace, surrounded by light. For, as we hear in 1 John 1:7, “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sins”.
We should therefore live a transparent life, with the divine light shining clearly through it; if we do, the “day of the Lord” (which can also be applied to the day each person dies) will not find us unprepared, even if it comes suddenly.
As Saint Jose Maria Escriva de Ballaguer, the founder of the Opus Dei Movement, says: “A true Christian is always ready to appear before God. Because, if he is fighting to live as a man of Christ, he is ready at every moment to fulfill his duty.” So let us pray to the Holy Spirit to fortify our faith so we can keep awake as the Lord can come at anytime. Amen.
Gospel acclamation: “Alleluia, alleluia. Remain in me as I remain in you, says the Lord. Whoever remains in me bears much fruit. Alleluia.”
Gospel: Matthew 25: 14-30.
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Imagine someone who, before going abroad, summoned his servants to entrust his property to them. He gave five talents of silver to one servant, two talents to another servant, and one talent to a third, to each according to his ability; and he went away.” “He who received five talents went at once to do business with the money, and gained another five. The one who received two talents did the same, and gained another two. But the one who received one talent dug a hole, and hid his master’s money.” “After a long time, the master of those servants returned and asked for a reckoning. The one who had received five talents came with another five talents, saying, ‘Lord, you entrusted me with five talents, but see, I have gained five more.’ The master answered, ‘Very well, good and faithful servant, since you have been faithful in a few things, I will entrust you with much more. Come and share the joy of your master.” “Then the one who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you entrusted me with two talents; with them I have gained two more.’ The master said, ‘Well, good and faithful servant, since you have been faithful in little things, I will entrust you with much more. Come and share the joy of your master.’” “Finally, the one who had received one talent came and said, ‘Master, I know that you are a hard man. You reap what you have not sown, and gather what you have not scattered. I was afraid, so I hid your money in the ground. Here, take what is yours!’” “But his master replied, ‘Wicked and worthless servant, you know that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered; so you should have deposited my money in the bank, and on my return you would have given it back to me with interest.” “Therefore, take the talent from him, and give it to the one who has ten. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who are unproductive, even what they have will be taken from them. As for that useless servant, throw him out into the dark, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Comment
This day’s Gospel recounts the parable of a king who, before going on a journey, summons his servants to whom he entrusts his property; to one he gives five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. The king knows his workers well and so does not want to burden every one of them with the same responsibility. We are those servants, by the way. The talents are the qualities God bestows on each of us – our intelligence, our ability to love, our ability to make others happy.
The man to whom the master assigns one talent seems to be a man of little ability; however, the master does not neglect him because of his lack of ability. The message here is that even to relatively disabled servants, God still finds a use. All God’s children have talents, even those who appear to have very minimal abilities in comparison with the more gifted ones. We are all stewards to whom God entrusts his property. The difference is the way we each account for the talents entrusted to us.
Some of us are like the first two servants who go off at once and immediately begin to trade with their talents. Others are like the third servant who prefers to dig a hole in the ground and bury his one talent in it. Why? Because he is afraid of losing it if he trades with it. He is probably reasoning like this: “Well, those with more talents can afford to take a risk. If they lose a talent, they can always make up for it later. But me, I have only one talent. If I lose it, am gone, end of story! So I better keep it safe and just take care of it.”
The Lord uses this parable to reprove those of us in Church who do not see ourselves as persons who possess outstanding gifts and talents. We therefore wrongly conclude that there is nothing for us to do in church, or in our society. But what if we use our time to visit the sick or the lonely elderly living across the street from us? What if we volunteer our time to teach doctrine to the children of our parish, for example?
The meaning of this parable is clear. The journey of the master signifies the duration of our lives. His unexpected return signifies our death. The settling of accounts is our judgement. The banquet is heaven. The Lord frequently reminds us in the Gospels that we do not own what we have. We are stewards entrusted with God’s property. A day will come when we shall have to give an account of our behaviour. We should therefore examine our whole approach to the gifts we have received from God.
All of us today have received at least one talent. We have received the gift of faith. Our responsibility as men and women of faith is not just to preserve and keep the faith. We need to trade with it. We need to sell it to the men and women of our times. We need to promote and add value to faith. This is a venture that brings with it much risk and inconvenience. But unless we do this, we stand in danger of losing the faith just as the third servant lost his talent. The way to preserve the faith, or any other talent that God has given us, is not to hide it but to put it to work and make it bear fruit. We should invest that talent especially among the poor and the destitute in our midst.
On this Seventh World Day dedicated to the poor, let us heed Pope Francis' appeal for us to translate our wishes into the action for the poor living at the frontiers of our lives. At our doors, lie the Lazaruses of the world. Let us not pretend we do not see them; rather let us stretch out a hand of love and compassion to them. Even though, as Pope Francis says, “Prayer to God and solidarity with the poor and suffering are inseparable,” we must accompany our prayers with acts of charity for the poor. He urges us to think in particular of peoples caught up in situations of war, as it is the case in our beloved land. He laments the fate of children in situations of war who are deprived of the serene present and a dignified future. We think of our own children in the northwest and southwest regions who, through this senseless war, are unable to go to school. Pope Francis says we should never grow accustomed to such situations. “Let us persevere in every effort,” continues the Holy Father, “to foster peace as a gift of the risen Lord and the fruit of a commitment to justice and dialogue.”
Let us say this prayer for the poor from the Episcopal church: “Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Help us to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy. Grant this, Father, for the love of your Son, who for our sake became poor, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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