Settling Accounts
The day of the Lord is coming, Paul warns in Sunday’s Epistle. What matters isn’t the time or the season, but what the Lord finds us doing with the new life, the graces He has given to us. This is at the heart of Jesus’ parable in the Gospel this week. Jesus is the Master. Having died, risen, and ascended into heaven, He appears to have gone away for a long time. By our baptism, He has entrusted to each of us a portion of His “possessions,” a share in His divine life (see 2 Peter 1:4). He has given us talents and responsibilities, according to the measure of our faith (see Romans 12:3,8). We are to be like the worthy wife in Sunday’s First Reading, and the faithful man we sing of in the Psalm. Like them, we should walk in the “fear of the Lord” – in reverence, awe, and thanksgiving for His marvelous gifts. This is the beginning of wisdom (see Acts 9:31; Proverbs 1:7). This is not the “fear” of the useless servant in Jesus’ parable this week. His is the fear of a slave cowering before a cruel master, the fear of one who refuses the relationship that God calls us to. He has called us to be trusted servants, fellow workers (see 1 Corinthians 3:9), using our talents to serve one another and His kingdom as good stewards of His grace (see 1 Peter 4:10). In this, we each have a different part to play. Though the good servants in the parable were given different numbers of talents, each “doubled” what he was given. And each earned the same reward for his faithfulness—greater responsibilities and a share of the Master’s joy. So let us resolve again in our Eucharist to make much of what we’ve been given, to do all for the glory of God (see 1 Corinthians 10:31). That we, too, may approach our Master with confidence and love when He comes to settle accounts.
Saint Jerome (347-420)
There is no question but that this householder is Christ. After his resurrection, when he was about to return triumphantly to the Father, he called his apostles and entrusted them with the Gospel teaching, giving more to one, less to the other, never too much or too little but according to the abilities of those who received it. In the same way the apostle Paul said that he had fed with milk those unable to take solid food (1Co 3,2)…
Five, two, one talent: let us take these to be the different graces granted to each, whether the five senses for the first, understanding of faith and works for the second, reason, distinguishing us from other creatures, for the third.
“The one who received five talents went away and traded with them and made another five.” That is to say, besides the physical and material senses he had received he added knowledge of heavenly things. His knowledge was raised from the creatures to the Creator, from the corporal to the incorporeal, from the visible to the invisible, from the transient to the eternal. “The one who received two made another two.”
This one likewise, according to his ability, doubled in the school of the Gospel what he had learned in the school of the Law. Or perhaps we could say that he understood that knowledge of faith and the works of this present life lead to future happiness.
“But the man who received one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.” In the grip of works here below and of worldly pleasures the wicked servant neglected God’s commands. However, let us note that, according to another evangelist, he wrapped it in a linen cloth: by this we could understand that he discarded his energy for the master’s teaching for a life of softness and pleasure…
The master welcomed the first two servants, both the one who had made ten talents out of five and the one who made four out of two, with the same words of praise. “Come,” he said, “share in your master’s joy and receive what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and what has not entered the human heart” (1Cor 2,9). What greater reward could be bestowed on a faithful servant?
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
Prayer: Seeking the Heart of God
“I have kept the Lord always before me; since he is at my right hand, I shall not slip”(Ps 16[15],8). For if there is one thing that Jesus asks of me, it is to lean on him, entrust myself to him alone, abandon myself to him without reserve… We should not try to control God’s actions. We must not count the stages in the journey he asks us to undertake. Even if I feel like a boat adrift, yet I must give myself wholly to him.
If this seems difficult, remember that we are not called upon to succeed but to be faithful. Fidelity, even in small things, is important – not for the sake of the thing itself, which would be the concern of a small-minded soul, but for the sake of the great thing which is the will of God. Saint Augustine said: “Small things remain small, but to be faithful in small things is a great thing. Isn’t our Lord just the same in a poor guest as in a great one?”(cf. Mt 25,40).
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address, November 16, 2008
The Word of God this Sunday the second to the last Sunday of the liturgical year invites us to be vigilant and hardworking, in the expectation of the Lord’s return at the end of time. The Gospel passage recounts the famous Parable of the Talents, related by St Matthew (25: 14-30).
The “talent” was an ancient Roman coin, of great value, and precisely because of this parable’s popularity it became synonymous with personal gifts, which everyone is called to develop. In fact, the text speaks of “a man going on a journey [who] called his servants and entrusted to them his property” (Mt 25: 14). The man in the parable represents Christ himself, the servants are the disciples and the talents are the gifts that Jesus entrusts to them.
These gifts, in addition to their natural qualities, thus represent the riches that the Lord Jesus has bequeathed to us as a legacy, so that we may make them productive: his Word, deposited in the Holy Gospel; Baptism, which renews us in the Holy Spirit; prayer the “Our Father” that we raise to God as his children, united in the Son; his forgiveness, which he commanded be offered to all; the Sacrament of his Body sacrificed and his Blood poured out; in a word: the Kingdom of God, which is God himself, present and alive in our midst.
This is the treasure that Jesus entrusted to his friends at the end of his brief life on earth. Today’s parable stresses the inner disposition necessary to accept and develop this gift. Fear is the wrong attitude: the servant who is afraid of his master and fears his return hides the coin in the earth and it does not produce any fruit. This happens, for example, to those who after receiving Baptism, Communion and Confirmation subsequently bury these gifts beneath a blanket of prejudice, beneath a false image of God that paralyzes faith and good works, thus betraying the Lord’s expectations.
However, the parable places a greater emphasis on the good fruits brought by the disciples who, happy with the gift they received, did not keep it hidden with fear and jealousy but made it profitable by sharing it and partaking in it. Yes, what Christ has given us is multiplied in its giving! It is a treasure made to be spent, invested and shared with all, as we are taught by the Apostle Paul, that great administrator of Jesus’ talents. The Gospel teaching that the liturgy offers us today has also had a strong effect at the historical and social level, encouraging an active and entrepreneurial spirit in the Christian people.
The central message, however, concerns the spirit of responsibility with which to receive God’s Kingdom: a responsibility to God and to humanity. This attitude of the heart is embodied perfectly in the Virgin Mary who, on receiving the most precious gift of all, Jesus himself, offered him to the world with immense love. Let us ask her to help us to be “good and faithful servants” so that we may one day enter “into the joy of our Lord”.
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address, November 13, 2011
The word of God of this Sunday — the second to last Sunday of the liturgical year — warns us of the transience of our earthly existence and invites us to live it as a pilgrimage, keeping our gaze fixed on the destination for which God has created us. Moreover, since he made us for himself (cf. St Augustine, Confessions 1, 1), he is our ultimate destination and the meaning of our existence.
Death, followed by the Last Judgement, is an obligatory stage to pass through in order to reach this definitive reality. The Apostle Paul says: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:2), that is, without warning. May knowledge of the glorious return of the Lord Jesus spur us to live in an attitude of watchfulness, waiting for his manifestation and in constant remembrance of his first Coming.
In the well known Parable of the Talents — recounted by the Evangelist Matthew (cf. 25: 14-30) — Jesus tells the story of three servants to whom their master entrusted his property, before setting out on a long journey. Two of them behaved impeccably, doubling the value of what they had received.
On the contrary, the third buried the money he had received in a hole. On his return, the master asked his servants to account for what he had entrusted to them and while he was pleased with the first two he was disappointed with the third.
Indeed, the servant who had hidden his talent and failed to make it increase in worth, had calculated badly. He behaved as if his master were never to return, as if there would never be a day on which he would be asked to account for his actions.
With this parable Jesus wanted to teach his disciples to make good use of his gifts: God calls every person and offers talents to all, at the same time entrusting each one with a mission to carry out. It would be foolish to presume that these gifts are an entitlement, just as failing to use them would mean failing to achieve our purpose in life.
In commenting on this Gospel passage St Gregory the Great noted that the Lord does not let anyone lack the gift of his charity, of his love. He wrote: “brothers, it is necessary that you pay the utmost attention to preserving love in everything you must do” (Homilies on the Gospel, 9, 6).
After explaining that true charity consists in loving enemies as well as friends, he added: “if someone lacks this virtue, he loses every good he possesses, he is deprived of the talent he received and is cast out into the darkness” (ibid.).
Dear brothers and sisters, let us accept the invitation to be watchful, of which the Scriptures frequently remind us! This is the attitude of those who know that the Lord will return and that he will wish to see the fruits of his love in us. Charity is the fundamental good that no one can fail to bring to fruition and without which every other good is worthless (cf. 1 Cor 13:3).
If Jesus loved us to the point of giving his life for us (cf. 1 Jn 3:16), how can we not love God with the whole of ourselves and love one another with real warmth? (cf. 1 Jn 4:11). It is only by practising charity that we too will be able to share in the joy of Our Lord. May the Virgin Mary teach us active and joyful watchfulness on our journey towards the encounter with God.
Saint John Chrysostom
Homilies on Saint Matthew’s Gospel, no. 78, 2-3
The parable of the talents
One of the servants said: “Lord, you entrusted to me five talents,” and another mentioned two. They acknowledge that they had received from him the means to carry out their duties well; they give witness to their great gratitude and render their accounts to him. What does the master reply? “Well done, my good and faithful servant (for it is the property of kindness to notice one’s neighbor); you have been faithful in small matters, I will set you over great; enter into the joy of your Lord.” Thus Jesus refers to entire blessedness.
As for him who only received one talent, he went off and buried it. “This good for nothing servant, throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.” So you see, it isn’t just the thief, the miser, the wrongdoer who will be punished at the end, it is also the person who fails to do good… Indeed, what are those talents? It is the power each one holds, the authority one enjoys, the fortune one possesses, the teaching one is able to give, and anything else of a similar kind. So let no one come and say: I’ve nothing but one talent, I can’t do anything. For even with only one talent you can act in a praiseworthy manner.
