33rd Sunday:Parable of Talents: the third servant
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Our attention in today's Gospel is immediately drawn to the third servant - the one who was given only one talent.
In the parable we hear about “a man going on a journey who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability” (Matt 25:15). From the beginning of the story we are told that the servant who received just one talent is a man of little ability. Yet it is interesting to note that the master has a talent even for his relatively disabled servant. All God’s children have got their talents, even those who appear to have very minimal abilities in comparison with the more gifted ones. See here God gives to us according to our ability.
A "talent" is a biblical term for a large sum of money. The best estimate I was able to find is that it's roughly equivalent to 75 pounds of pure silver. I checked on the Internet this week, and silver was going for about $17.50 an ounce, or $280 a pound. That makes a talent worth about $21,000.
The other place I found said it was much higher. It said that a talent was worth about 6,000 drachmas. A drachma was a silver coin, and it was the standard day's wages for a worker. If you figure $7 an hour, times 8 hours a day, that's $56 a day – I know they worked longer hours back then, but stick with me – times 6,000 coins, that's $336,000.
Any way you look at it, a talent is a lot of money!
So, the master or the employer gives one person five of these talents – that's 375 pounds of silver. Another person gets two talents – 150 pounds. The third person gets one measly talent – just 75 pounds.
This third servant seems to be a rather unfortunate man and he makes us uncomfortable too because, in some ways, he reminds us of ourselves.
'... I was afraid ...' He digs a hole in the ground and buries his one talent. Why does he do that? Because he is afraid he is going to lose it if he trades with it. He must have reasoned like this: “Well, those with more talents can afford to take a risk. If they lost a talent, they could make it up later. But me, I have only one talent. If I lose it, end of story! So I better play it safe and just take care of it.” Many of us in the church are like this third servant. Because we do not see ourselves as possessing outstanding gifts and talents, we conclude that there is nothing that we do. The third guy's basic problem was fear. He didn't want to make a mistake. He'd been watching the market go down and down and down the way it has recently. And he didn't want to lose the money he'd been entrusted with. I think he was just like us. We talk a lot about using our talents, but a whole lot of the things God gives us are never used. We're afraid. God gives us everything. If we happen to think that we have so little that there is nothing to share and give to others, then we are like the ‘one’ with the one talent who buried it. We're afraid. So we bury them. We bury them just like the third guy in today's story.
Some of us surely feel like the third one – untrustworthy and poorly equipped to bring about any real change in the world. Others may have the confidence of the first slave, but the same results as the third. We simply hang on to what we have – be it money or skill – rather than risk it to accomplish more.
Our medieval ancestors in the faith were so moved the implications of this story that they coined the word “talent” as a term to describe any ability that God might have given us. It was a reminder to them – and to us – that our skills and our insights, our minds and our bodies, our interests and our specialties are all resources that can be used to change the world. It is also a reminder that these things, alongside any material wealth we might have, are not ours. They are not a birthright. They are a trust, given us by the One who has created us.
And that One expects … demands … a return on that investment.
I know this won’t be a good example but just take the current issue. Our elected President Barak Obama when he decide to stand for the presidential election, he could have thought of like this “who am I! I am just a black American, no Back American in the history of America stayed in the White house as a president, I am just young man who has no much experience in politics, my party opponent is senator Hilary Clinton. So I won’t win. Why should I waist my money.” He didn’t stop. He didn’t bury his talents he tried and he won the election. “If you wanna win, you got to play.”
A man got mad with God. “God,” he said, I have been praying daily for three years that I should win the state lottery. You told us to ask and we shall receive. How come I never received all these three years I have been asking?” Then he heard the voice of God, loud and clear. “My dear son,” says God. “Please do me a favor and buy a lottery ticket.”
The problem we face is that our hearts and souls are too often filled with an emotional fear, a negative fear that causes us not to act, that leads us into a selfish gathering of things that we keep only for ourselves. It is a paralyzing fear that leads us to be like turtles hiding inside a thick outer shell that prevents us from loving others, that keeps others at a distance, and that isolates in a self-imposed hell of loneliness.
Booker T. Washington was right on target when he said that “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles that one has overcome while trying to succeed.”
Yes dear brothers and sisters learn how to count our blessings and count them. St. Paul reminds us [Romans 8:15], we are not heirs of a spirit of slavery and fear; we are children, adopted and claimed by the spirit of God.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Our attention in today's Gospel is immediately drawn to the third servant - the one who was given only one talent.
In the parable we hear about “a man going on a journey who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability” (Matt 25:15). From the beginning of the story we are told that the servant who received just one talent is a man of little ability. Yet it is interesting to note that the master has a talent even for his relatively disabled servant. All God’s children have got their talents, even those who appear to have very minimal abilities in comparison with the more gifted ones. See here God gives to us according to our ability.
A "talent" is a biblical term for a large sum of money. The best estimate I was able to find is that it's roughly equivalent to 75 pounds of pure silver. I checked on the Internet this week, and silver was going for about $17.50 an ounce, or $280 a pound. That makes a talent worth about $21,000.
The other place I found said it was much higher. It said that a talent was worth about 6,000 drachmas. A drachma was a silver coin, and it was the standard day's wages for a worker. If you figure $7 an hour, times 8 hours a day, that's $56 a day – I know they worked longer hours back then, but stick with me – times 6,000 coins, that's $336,000.
Any way you look at it, a talent is a lot of money!
So, the master or the employer gives one person five of these talents – that's 375 pounds of silver. Another person gets two talents – 150 pounds. The third person gets one measly talent – just 75 pounds.
This third servant seems to be a rather unfortunate man and he makes us uncomfortable too because, in some ways, he reminds us of ourselves.
'... I was afraid ...' He digs a hole in the ground and buries his one talent. Why does he do that? Because he is afraid he is going to lose it if he trades with it. He must have reasoned like this: “Well, those with more talents can afford to take a risk. If they lost a talent, they could make it up later. But me, I have only one talent. If I lose it, end of story! So I better play it safe and just take care of it.” Many of us in the church are like this third servant. Because we do not see ourselves as possessing outstanding gifts and talents, we conclude that there is nothing that we do. The third guy's basic problem was fear. He didn't want to make a mistake. He'd been watching the market go down and down and down the way it has recently. And he didn't want to lose the money he'd been entrusted with. I think he was just like us. We talk a lot about using our talents, but a whole lot of the things God gives us are never used. We're afraid. God gives us everything. If we happen to think that we have so little that there is nothing to share and give to others, then we are like the ‘one’ with the one talent who buried it. We're afraid. So we bury them. We bury them just like the third guy in today's story.
Some of us surely feel like the third one – untrustworthy and poorly equipped to bring about any real change in the world. Others may have the confidence of the first slave, but the same results as the third. We simply hang on to what we have – be it money or skill – rather than risk it to accomplish more.
Our medieval ancestors in the faith were so moved the implications of this story that they coined the word “talent” as a term to describe any ability that God might have given us. It was a reminder to them – and to us – that our skills and our insights, our minds and our bodies, our interests and our specialties are all resources that can be used to change the world. It is also a reminder that these things, alongside any material wealth we might have, are not ours. They are not a birthright. They are a trust, given us by the One who has created us.
And that One expects … demands … a return on that investment.
I know this won’t be a good example but just take the current issue. Our elected President Barak Obama when he decide to stand for the presidential election, he could have thought of like this “who am I! I am just a black American, no Back American in the history of America stayed in the White house as a president, I am just young man who has no much experience in politics, my party opponent is senator Hilary Clinton. So I won’t win. Why should I waist my money.” He didn’t stop. He didn’t bury his talents he tried and he won the election. “If you wanna win, you got to play.”
A man got mad with God. “God,” he said, I have been praying daily for three years that I should win the state lottery. You told us to ask and we shall receive. How come I never received all these three years I have been asking?” Then he heard the voice of God, loud and clear. “My dear son,” says God. “Please do me a favor and buy a lottery ticket.”
The problem we face is that our hearts and souls are too often filled with an emotional fear, a negative fear that causes us not to act, that leads us into a selfish gathering of things that we keep only for ourselves. It is a paralyzing fear that leads us to be like turtles hiding inside a thick outer shell that prevents us from loving others, that keeps others at a distance, and that isolates in a self-imposed hell of loneliness.
Booker T. Washington was right on target when he said that “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles that one has overcome while trying to succeed.”
Yes dear brothers and sisters learn how to count our blessings and count them. St. Paul reminds us [Romans 8:15], we are not heirs of a spirit of slavery and fear; we are children, adopted and claimed by the spirit of God.
Dedication of Lateran Basilica :We are the Temple of God
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Today we celebrate this feast in honor of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. The Church of Saint John Lateran is the cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Rome–Saint Peter’s Basilica is not the cathedral church of Rome–so this is the Pope’s cathedral. Today, perhaps with good reason, all the major basilicas of Rome are considered more or less cathedrals of the Pope. It is an ancient building. There is not a saint by the name of Saint John Lateran, but rather it is a church named after Saint John the Evangelist and The Lateran, the land which once belonged to the noble Roman family, the Laterani, was given to the bishop of Rome by the Roman emperor, Constantine. That is how it has its name.
We have the physical church building, we have the new and eternal Jerusalem (in other words, the eternal temple of God in heaven), and then we have the temple which is our own body. In order to be able to truly understand what the dignity of this feast is, we have to be able to understand each of these elements. I think all of us would understand reasonably well the dignity of the eternal temple in heaven, but also I think we all see the importance and the dignity of the church building. But the problem is that we are the living members, the living stones, that make up that eternal Jerusalem and it is the dignity of our own self that most of us tend to miss.
Once, a woman in a coma was dying. She suddenly had a feeling she was taken up to heaven and stood before the judgment Seat.
Who are you?” a voice said to her.
“I am the wife of the mayor,” she replied.
“I did not ask you whose wife you are but who you are”
“I am the mother of four children.”
“I did not ask whose mother you are, but who you are”
“I am a school teacher.”
“I did not ask you what your profession is but who you are.”
And so it went. NO matter what she replied, she did not seem to give a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who are You?”
“I am a Christian.”
“I did not ask what your religion is but who you are.”
“I am the one who went to church every day and always helped the poor and the needy.”
“I did not ask you what you did but who you are.”
She evidently failed the examination for she sent back to earth. When she recovered from her illness she determined to find out who she was. And that made all the difference.
Your duty is to be. Not to be somebody, not to be nobody- for therein lies greed and ambition-not to be this or that- and thus become conditioned-but just to be.
Yes dear brothers and sisters, do you know who you are? In today’s readings, St Paul is giving an idea that you are the temple of God. And the Spirit of God dwells in you (1Cor. 3:11-17) .This Holy Spirit dwells in us personally and individually, but also dwells in us as the chosen people, the community saved by the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. If we do not recognize the dignity of our own temple, which is a microcosm of the new and eternal Jerusalem, and which in fact is a living member of that new and eternal Jerusalem, then we will have no part of it. The body, as Saint Paul says, is not made for immorality. It is made for holiness, so we are to use our bodies to express in the physical world what it means to be an image of God, to show in a physical way what it means to live as members of Jesus Christ and as children of God.
Prophet Ezekiel presents us with the image of water flowing from the temple. This water is the blood of Christ poured out for us, it is the Holy Spirit poured on us, and it is the love of the Father embracing us. Whatever this water touches brims with life. My dear brothers and sisters, it is the right time to think whether the living water of God is flowing from us, the temples of God.
At first glance, this reading seems to be about the Temple building and the need to keep that space holy. In order to pay the required Temple tax, people had to convert their Roman and Greek pagan coins into religiously correct, imageless currency. For the sacrifices, most people purchased unblemished animals from the Temple markets - doves, sheep and cattle, a range of animals for a range of budgets. Most could only afford the cheapest option. A dove that cost 15 cents on the streets of Jerusalem cost $15 in the Temple market. These were expensive burdens for the mostly impoverished faithful, who sacrificed mightily to travel from all corners of the empire to Jerusalem. Jesus was enraged because the merchants were mistreating the people, overcharging and cheating the poor who came to worship. Jesus knew that the great Temple itself would be destroyed. Jesus also knew that God had made his dwelling place not in a building, but in “his Father’s house”, the House of Israel, the people themselves.
When the temple priests tried to stop Jesus, Jesus told the people that if the temple was destroyed He could rebuild it in three days. They thought Jesus was talking about the actual temple (the building) which had taken forty-six years to build. But Jesus meant the temple of his own body, which would be destroyed by death (He would die on the cross) but His body would be raised to life again after three days.
This is a radical shift in perspective. In that day, religions taught that God had to be found in certain designated places, such as the Temple building or at Jacob’s mountain in Samaria. Now Jesus is saying something entirely new. He is saying that God can be found in each person’s own heart and soul. As Paul says in the Second Reading, we ourselves are “God’s building.… The temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells” in each one of us.
We are the living stones, and we carry the church around with us wherever we go. Each of us has a small part of the whole, and it is our job to put those pieces together, day by day and year by year. This is how the church of Jesus lives on. And make no mistake; it would be easier just to build a big stone temple. Anybody can build a building. It’s much more of a challenge and exciting and rewarding to build a community. And we all together form that community; the Church.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Today we celebrate this feast in honor of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. The Church of Saint John Lateran is the cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Rome–Saint Peter’s Basilica is not the cathedral church of Rome–so this is the Pope’s cathedral. Today, perhaps with good reason, all the major basilicas of Rome are considered more or less cathedrals of the Pope. It is an ancient building. There is not a saint by the name of Saint John Lateran, but rather it is a church named after Saint John the Evangelist and The Lateran, the land which once belonged to the noble Roman family, the Laterani, was given to the bishop of Rome by the Roman emperor, Constantine. That is how it has its name.
We have the physical church building, we have the new and eternal Jerusalem (in other words, the eternal temple of God in heaven), and then we have the temple which is our own body. In order to be able to truly understand what the dignity of this feast is, we have to be able to understand each of these elements. I think all of us would understand reasonably well the dignity of the eternal temple in heaven, but also I think we all see the importance and the dignity of the church building. But the problem is that we are the living members, the living stones, that make up that eternal Jerusalem and it is the dignity of our own self that most of us tend to miss.
Once, a woman in a coma was dying. She suddenly had a feeling she was taken up to heaven and stood before the judgment Seat.
Who are you?” a voice said to her.
“I am the wife of the mayor,” she replied.
“I did not ask you whose wife you are but who you are”
“I am the mother of four children.”
“I did not ask whose mother you are, but who you are”
“I am a school teacher.”
“I did not ask you what your profession is but who you are.”
And so it went. NO matter what she replied, she did not seem to give a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who are You?”
“I am a Christian.”
“I did not ask what your religion is but who you are.”
“I am the one who went to church every day and always helped the poor and the needy.”
“I did not ask you what you did but who you are.”
She evidently failed the examination for she sent back to earth. When she recovered from her illness she determined to find out who she was. And that made all the difference.
Your duty is to be. Not to be somebody, not to be nobody- for therein lies greed and ambition-not to be this or that- and thus become conditioned-but just to be.
Yes dear brothers and sisters, do you know who you are? In today’s readings, St Paul is giving an idea that you are the temple of God. And the Spirit of God dwells in you (1Cor. 3:11-17) .This Holy Spirit dwells in us personally and individually, but also dwells in us as the chosen people, the community saved by the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. If we do not recognize the dignity of our own temple, which is a microcosm of the new and eternal Jerusalem, and which in fact is a living member of that new and eternal Jerusalem, then we will have no part of it. The body, as Saint Paul says, is not made for immorality. It is made for holiness, so we are to use our bodies to express in the physical world what it means to be an image of God, to show in a physical way what it means to live as members of Jesus Christ and as children of God.
Prophet Ezekiel presents us with the image of water flowing from the temple. This water is the blood of Christ poured out for us, it is the Holy Spirit poured on us, and it is the love of the Father embracing us. Whatever this water touches brims with life. My dear brothers and sisters, it is the right time to think whether the living water of God is flowing from us, the temples of God.
At first glance, this reading seems to be about the Temple building and the need to keep that space holy. In order to pay the required Temple tax, people had to convert their Roman and Greek pagan coins into religiously correct, imageless currency. For the sacrifices, most people purchased unblemished animals from the Temple markets - doves, sheep and cattle, a range of animals for a range of budgets. Most could only afford the cheapest option. A dove that cost 15 cents on the streets of Jerusalem cost $15 in the Temple market. These were expensive burdens for the mostly impoverished faithful, who sacrificed mightily to travel from all corners of the empire to Jerusalem. Jesus was enraged because the merchants were mistreating the people, overcharging and cheating the poor who came to worship. Jesus knew that the great Temple itself would be destroyed. Jesus also knew that God had made his dwelling place not in a building, but in “his Father’s house”, the House of Israel, the people themselves.
When the temple priests tried to stop Jesus, Jesus told the people that if the temple was destroyed He could rebuild it in three days. They thought Jesus was talking about the actual temple (the building) which had taken forty-six years to build. But Jesus meant the temple of his own body, which would be destroyed by death (He would die on the cross) but His body would be raised to life again after three days.
This is a radical shift in perspective. In that day, religions taught that God had to be found in certain designated places, such as the Temple building or at Jacob’s mountain in Samaria. Now Jesus is saying something entirely new. He is saying that God can be found in each person’s own heart and soul. As Paul says in the Second Reading, we ourselves are “God’s building.… The temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells” in each one of us.
We are the living stones, and we carry the church around with us wherever we go. Each of us has a small part of the whole, and it is our job to put those pieces together, day by day and year by year. This is how the church of Jesus lives on. And make no mistake; it would be easier just to build a big stone temple. Anybody can build a building. It’s much more of a challenge and exciting and rewarding to build a community. And we all together form that community; the Church.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
30th :Love God And Neighbor
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in the law. The book answer, of course is love of God. But Jesus does not stop there. He goes on to give a more practical answer. True love of God and true love of neighbor is practically one and the same thing.
For Jesus, true love must express itself in three dimensions. These three dimensions are (a) love of God, (b) love of neighbor, and (c) love of oneself. The first two are positively commanded; the last one is not commanded but presumed to be the basis of all loving. The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself presumes that you love yourself.
Our love of God is manifested in how we love the neighbor. (And by neighbor, the gospel writer is not talking about the guy next door. It is any person, and most especially any person that we would rather not love, indeed, perhaps, an enemy). “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21).
Perhaps, the image of the cross is the best that captures this creative tension between love of God and love of neighbor. The cross would not be the cross without the two beams. The vertical beam corresponds to our love of God; it is the foundation for the entire enterprise, but it is not a cross. The horizontal beam corresponds to our love of neighbor. It is built upon the vertical, and without the vertical it would fall, and it itself, is not a cross. It is the arms outstretched in a sign of total and radical self-giving to and for others. Only the two together make the cross, the love of God and the love of neighbor. And yet, our love of God is primarily displayed in how we love our neighbor, how our arms are outstretched.To direct us all our lives to love God with our heart soul and mind, God has given us guidelines, the Ten Commandments.
The first three of the Ten Commandments show us how to love God. The next seven commandments show us how to love our neighbor.
How do we love?
A little girl had a brother who was in need of a bone marrow transplant in order to survive. Now this brother was not always particularly nice to her…in fact, as big brothers sometimes do, he picked on her quite a bit. As she was the perfect match for her brother, her parents came to the little girl and asked if she would agree to donate her marrow to allow her brother to live. She thought about it quietly, then, said simply, “Yes.” On the morning of the procedure, as the little girl was being prepped for the transplant, she looked up at her mother and asked, “Mommy, will it hurt when I die?” She mistakenly thought that she would have to lose her life so that her brother might keep his. She truly loved God. And this is the kind of love to which we are called. A total self-gift. Holding nothing back. No, we don’t always have to die physically…but we do need to die to self – to put others first.
If you are going to love someone with all your heart, soul and mind, you are going to be completely focused on that person. Jesus wants us to live our day to day lives in a loving, intimate relationship with God.
Then Jesus goes on to say our relationship with God is connected to our relationship with others. By adding the second commandment – loving your neighbor as yourself – Jesus was telling them how to love God. He was calling them to action. Not simply the feeling of emotional love, but an active love of total self-gift to our fellow human kind.
What would it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves? First of all, we have to love ourselves, which means we have to be nice to ourselves, to be merciful and nonviolent to ourselves, to forgive ourselves, and to treat ourselves with kindness. Every one of us needs to work on this, to be kind to ourselves. Loving ourselves in a proper way is necessary for us to love others. Why? The answer lies in an old Latin phrase, Nemo quod dat non habet - you can't give what you yourself don't possess. In other words, you can't love others correctly and in a proper way unless you have loved yourself enough first. Here, Jesus presumes that loving others is preceded by loving ourselves in a proper way.
You cannot be a loving person who shows compassion and mercy to others if you first do not show compassion and mercy to yourself.
My dear brothers and sisters, we almost never violate our beliefs. We hardly ever act against what we really believe. We live in line with our beliefs - not always with what we say we believe, but with what we actually believe. So if you want to change someone's lifestyle or behavior, what are you going to have to do? You're going to have to change the way they see things, how they believe about things, their understanding of things. If I want to change my mind and my beliefs about that thing, I've got to study and reflect and think about it until I get to the point where I find myself believing it.
To The World You Might Be One Person; But To One Person You Might Be the World. Love your God and Love your neighbor as yourself.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in the law. The book answer, of course is love of God. But Jesus does not stop there. He goes on to give a more practical answer. True love of God and true love of neighbor is practically one and the same thing.
For Jesus, true love must express itself in three dimensions. These three dimensions are (a) love of God, (b) love of neighbor, and (c) love of oneself. The first two are positively commanded; the last one is not commanded but presumed to be the basis of all loving. The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself presumes that you love yourself.
Our love of God is manifested in how we love the neighbor. (And by neighbor, the gospel writer is not talking about the guy next door. It is any person, and most especially any person that we would rather not love, indeed, perhaps, an enemy). “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21).
Perhaps, the image of the cross is the best that captures this creative tension between love of God and love of neighbor. The cross would not be the cross without the two beams. The vertical beam corresponds to our love of God; it is the foundation for the entire enterprise, but it is not a cross. The horizontal beam corresponds to our love of neighbor. It is built upon the vertical, and without the vertical it would fall, and it itself, is not a cross. It is the arms outstretched in a sign of total and radical self-giving to and for others. Only the two together make the cross, the love of God and the love of neighbor. And yet, our love of God is primarily displayed in how we love our neighbor, how our arms are outstretched.To direct us all our lives to love God with our heart soul and mind, God has given us guidelines, the Ten Commandments.
The first three of the Ten Commandments show us how to love God. The next seven commandments show us how to love our neighbor.
How do we love?
A little girl had a brother who was in need of a bone marrow transplant in order to survive. Now this brother was not always particularly nice to her…in fact, as big brothers sometimes do, he picked on her quite a bit. As she was the perfect match for her brother, her parents came to the little girl and asked if she would agree to donate her marrow to allow her brother to live. She thought about it quietly, then, said simply, “Yes.” On the morning of the procedure, as the little girl was being prepped for the transplant, she looked up at her mother and asked, “Mommy, will it hurt when I die?” She mistakenly thought that she would have to lose her life so that her brother might keep his. She truly loved God. And this is the kind of love to which we are called. A total self-gift. Holding nothing back. No, we don’t always have to die physically…but we do need to die to self – to put others first.
If you are going to love someone with all your heart, soul and mind, you are going to be completely focused on that person. Jesus wants us to live our day to day lives in a loving, intimate relationship with God.
Then Jesus goes on to say our relationship with God is connected to our relationship with others. By adding the second commandment – loving your neighbor as yourself – Jesus was telling them how to love God. He was calling them to action. Not simply the feeling of emotional love, but an active love of total self-gift to our fellow human kind.
What would it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves? First of all, we have to love ourselves, which means we have to be nice to ourselves, to be merciful and nonviolent to ourselves, to forgive ourselves, and to treat ourselves with kindness. Every one of us needs to work on this, to be kind to ourselves. Loving ourselves in a proper way is necessary for us to love others. Why? The answer lies in an old Latin phrase, Nemo quod dat non habet - you can't give what you yourself don't possess. In other words, you can't love others correctly and in a proper way unless you have loved yourself enough first. Here, Jesus presumes that loving others is preceded by loving ourselves in a proper way.
You cannot be a loving person who shows compassion and mercy to others if you first do not show compassion and mercy to yourself.
My dear brothers and sisters, we almost never violate our beliefs. We hardly ever act against what we really believe. We live in line with our beliefs - not always with what we say we believe, but with what we actually believe. So if you want to change someone's lifestyle or behavior, what are you going to have to do? You're going to have to change the way they see things, how they believe about things, their understanding of things. If I want to change my mind and my beliefs about that thing, I've got to study and reflect and think about it until I get to the point where I find myself believing it.
To The World You Might Be One Person; But To One Person You Might Be the World. Love your God and Love your neighbor as yourself.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
29th :Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Jesus' enemies, having heard the good news about God's compassionate and reconciling love that Jesus had preached. They weren't interested in it. All they thought about was their own power. So they wanted to trick Jesus.
The Pharisees and the Herodians, religious and political parties respectively, teamed up to entrap Jesus. The Pharisees were opposed to taxation by the Romans. On the other hand the Herodians, as supporters of King Herod, felt there was an obligation to pay the tax. And so the Pharisees, in the presence of the Herodians, asked Jesus, “is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” If Jesus had answered “yes, it is lawful,” the Pharisees would have had justification to persecute him. If he answered “no, it is not lawful,” the Herodians would have arrested him for opposing the tax. It’s a real trap more than we can expect. But Jesus, as he so often did, provided the perfect answer, saving himself from punishment by either party while teaching us something at the same time. He answered, “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” In saying this, Jesus acknowledged that both Caesar and God have certain rights. Neither party could arrest him.
The question was whether one should give (Greek didômi) tribute to Caesar. But Jesus' answer spoke of giving back, paying back (paradidômi), as if one already owed something. Jesus’ answer could be paraphrased as: "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's due, and to God what is God's due." Instead of answering the direct question of whether one should pay the forced tribute to Caesar or not, Jesus raises the question to another level, that of the principle of justice. Greek philosophers before Jesus defined justice as "giving back to everyone what is their due." Jesus seems to be saying that the only binding obligation is that of justice, that of giving back to every person what is due to them. Serving God is basically a matter of justice? If God has given us all that we are and have, then we are bound in justice to give back to God some gratitude, loyalty, and service. The central act of Christian worship is called Eucharist, which means "thanksgiving." It is basically a question of paying back the debt of gratitude we owe to God.
The answer our Lord gives has very serious implications for you and for me. First, it means that you and I have dual citizenship: in the kingdom of heaven and in the kingdom of earth. Second, it means that our citizenship in heaven and all that it demands must serve as the litmus test for how we conduct ourselves as citizens on earth. This makes sense: how we behave here will help decide whether or not we reach our heavenly citizenship. Third, it causes us to consider the role of the Catholic in public life. We have a civic duty. Tell me brothers and sisters, if it is not a law or mandatory to come to the Sunday Mass; will you all be here today? And if there is no Law in this free world what will be our future? Bishop Robert J. Herman, the administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, asked the faithful to consider what kind of witness they give to God when they enter the voting booth on Election Day.
Jesus asked to bring a coin and The inscription on this coin reads “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus.” To Jesus, this was blasphemous: the coin claims that Augustus was a god.
One interpretation of Jesus’s words was that he was making an analogy — the coin is made on the orders of the emperor and is stamped with the image of the emperor, and the emperor may call on you to give it to him in tribute; by analogy, you were made by God and in God’s image, and you must therefore devote your life in tribute to God, rather than Caesar.
Tertullian, (in De Idololatria,) interprets Jesus’ saying to render “the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is on man, to God; so as to render to Caesar indeed money, to God yourself. Otherwise, what will be God’s, if all things are Caesar’s?”
So we give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Give God what is God’s? What is God’s? If God is the Creator, then it’s not enough to say that everything belongs to God. It’s even more than that. We are all in God. The world and the cosmos and time and space and everything else. It’s mind boggling that God takes interest in anything in this world. Anything that we can give. God doesn’t just want anything. It’s not like he needs money. Or food. Or anything. Actually, in the Bible, God says a couple of times that it’s not sacrifice that he desires. He even said that he is repulsed by stuff that people bring him. All the festivals and ceremonies. What does God want from us? Is it not us that he wants? He wants me and you, the real me and you. He wants me to seek him, like he’s real, and like he’s what matters most. I used to bring God my religious self, not my plain self. I still do sometimes. But he wants to have a frank relationship with me. He doesn’t want to be my religion. He wants to be my God. God wants to see me be like him. In the same passage where he says he doesn’t want sacrifices, he says he wants mercy. He wanted to see his heart and compassion in people. But people were selfish and ruthless and mean to each other.
This week, as you go about whatever God has called you to do, see in the works that you do, the hand of God building His Kingdom, one act, one brick ,one small act of love at a time. And know that in the end, you can look back and see that the house of love that you've helped build is the Kingdom that God has prepared for all of us, from the beginning of time. And that is what the missionaries are doing; doing their duty as citizen of Heaven and citizen of earth. Helping others to become the citizens of heaven. No matter how little, if that is the best you could, that is good enough for God. In the final analysis, it is not your ability that counts, but your availability and your mentality.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Jesus' enemies, having heard the good news about God's compassionate and reconciling love that Jesus had preached. They weren't interested in it. All they thought about was their own power. So they wanted to trick Jesus.
The Pharisees and the Herodians, religious and political parties respectively, teamed up to entrap Jesus. The Pharisees were opposed to taxation by the Romans. On the other hand the Herodians, as supporters of King Herod, felt there was an obligation to pay the tax. And so the Pharisees, in the presence of the Herodians, asked Jesus, “is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” If Jesus had answered “yes, it is lawful,” the Pharisees would have had justification to persecute him. If he answered “no, it is not lawful,” the Herodians would have arrested him for opposing the tax. It’s a real trap more than we can expect. But Jesus, as he so often did, provided the perfect answer, saving himself from punishment by either party while teaching us something at the same time. He answered, “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” In saying this, Jesus acknowledged that both Caesar and God have certain rights. Neither party could arrest him.
The question was whether one should give (Greek didômi) tribute to Caesar. But Jesus' answer spoke of giving back, paying back (paradidômi), as if one already owed something. Jesus’ answer could be paraphrased as: "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's due, and to God what is God's due." Instead of answering the direct question of whether one should pay the forced tribute to Caesar or not, Jesus raises the question to another level, that of the principle of justice. Greek philosophers before Jesus defined justice as "giving back to everyone what is their due." Jesus seems to be saying that the only binding obligation is that of justice, that of giving back to every person what is due to them. Serving God is basically a matter of justice? If God has given us all that we are and have, then we are bound in justice to give back to God some gratitude, loyalty, and service. The central act of Christian worship is called Eucharist, which means "thanksgiving." It is basically a question of paying back the debt of gratitude we owe to God.
The answer our Lord gives has very serious implications for you and for me. First, it means that you and I have dual citizenship: in the kingdom of heaven and in the kingdom of earth. Second, it means that our citizenship in heaven and all that it demands must serve as the litmus test for how we conduct ourselves as citizens on earth. This makes sense: how we behave here will help decide whether or not we reach our heavenly citizenship. Third, it causes us to consider the role of the Catholic in public life. We have a civic duty. Tell me brothers and sisters, if it is not a law or mandatory to come to the Sunday Mass; will you all be here today? And if there is no Law in this free world what will be our future? Bishop Robert J. Herman, the administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, asked the faithful to consider what kind of witness they give to God when they enter the voting booth on Election Day.
Jesus asked to bring a coin and The inscription on this coin reads “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus.” To Jesus, this was blasphemous: the coin claims that Augustus was a god.
One interpretation of Jesus’s words was that he was making an analogy — the coin is made on the orders of the emperor and is stamped with the image of the emperor, and the emperor may call on you to give it to him in tribute; by analogy, you were made by God and in God’s image, and you must therefore devote your life in tribute to God, rather than Caesar.
Tertullian, (in De Idololatria,) interprets Jesus’ saying to render “the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is on man, to God; so as to render to Caesar indeed money, to God yourself. Otherwise, what will be God’s, if all things are Caesar’s?”
So we give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Give God what is God’s? What is God’s? If God is the Creator, then it’s not enough to say that everything belongs to God. It’s even more than that. We are all in God. The world and the cosmos and time and space and everything else. It’s mind boggling that God takes interest in anything in this world. Anything that we can give. God doesn’t just want anything. It’s not like he needs money. Or food. Or anything. Actually, in the Bible, God says a couple of times that it’s not sacrifice that he desires. He even said that he is repulsed by stuff that people bring him. All the festivals and ceremonies. What does God want from us? Is it not us that he wants? He wants me and you, the real me and you. He wants me to seek him, like he’s real, and like he’s what matters most. I used to bring God my religious self, not my plain self. I still do sometimes. But he wants to have a frank relationship with me. He doesn’t want to be my religion. He wants to be my God. God wants to see me be like him. In the same passage where he says he doesn’t want sacrifices, he says he wants mercy. He wanted to see his heart and compassion in people. But people were selfish and ruthless and mean to each other.
This week, as you go about whatever God has called you to do, see in the works that you do, the hand of God building His Kingdom, one act, one brick ,one small act of love at a time. And know that in the end, you can look back and see that the house of love that you've helped build is the Kingdom that God has prepared for all of us, from the beginning of time. And that is what the missionaries are doing; doing their duty as citizen of Heaven and citizen of earth. Helping others to become the citizens of heaven. No matter how little, if that is the best you could, that is good enough for God. In the final analysis, it is not your ability that counts, but your availability and your mentality.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
28th :Parable of the Vineyard and wicked tenants
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Parables are narrative time bombs. The parables were meant to blast people into new awareness, new understandings, and new ideas.
This parable is one of only three that appears in all of the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Curiously, some of Jesus' best-known parables (like the Good Samaritan) occur in one gospel alone but nowhere else. Only the parables of The Sower, The Mustard Seed, and The Tenants get repeated in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Today's gospel calls for responsibility and accountability in our dealings with God, which include our dealings with our fellow human beings.
Let us also identify all the players of the parable. The vineyard is the nation of Israel -- the chosen people of God. The owner of the vineyard is God. The tenants are the religious leaders of Israel who were responsible for the cultivation of fruitful holiness and the wellbeing of the people of Israel. The servants sent by the landowner are the prophets who God sent to warn, to encourage, to challenge and to reassure; yet they were often greeted with threats of violence and even death. The son in the story is Jesus who is sent by His heavenly Father.
The parable teaches us a lot about God and how God relates to us. First we see the PROVIDENCE of God. "There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower"(Matthew 21:33a). Before God entrusts a responsibility to you, He makes provision for all that you will need in carrying out the responsibility.
"Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country" (verse 33b). This shows God's TRUST in us. We all have at least received life from God. Life is given to us in trust. We are expected to cultivate and manage this life in such a way that it bears good fruit - fruit that we can present to God the owner of our lives on the day of reckoning. God does not stand looking over our shoulders, policing us to make sure we do the right thing. God leaves the job to us and goes on vacation to a far country, so to say. God trusts that we will do the right thing. Unfortunately many of us don't. The story also highlights God's PATIENCE with us. God sends messenger after messenger to the rebellious managers who would not render to God what is His due. Our God is a patient God. Just as the landowner sent several servants in multiple waves to collect his payment of produce, God also seemingly gives us chance after chance to respond to his unique call to us. Do we recognize and appreciate the patience of God? With each messenger, God provides another chance for us to put an end to rebellion and do the right thing. Finally there comes a last chance. God plays His last card and sends His only son. If we miss this last chance, then we've missed it. In the end we see God's JUDGMENT in which rebellious humanity lose their very lives, and their privileges are transferred to others who are more promising. The picture is that of a provident, trusting, patient, but also just God.
There is lot more to understand. First we see human PRIVILEGE. Like the managers of the vineyard, everything we have is a privilege and not a merit. This is what we mean when we say that everything is God's grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Another word for this is privilege. Life itself is a privilege which can be taken away from any of us at any moment. Privilege comes, however, with RESPONSIBILITY. We are ultimately responsible and accountable to God for the way we use or abuse our God-given privileges. God has given us all that we need to make a judicious use of all our privileges, yet we retain the ability to abuse them. This is called FREEDOM.
St John Vianney used to try to move his people to love one another, to love God, to be faithful to their Mass, to their marriage partner but he couldn’t and he wept. They asked him ‘Why do you cry?’ and he said ‘because you won’t’.
In the final verses of this parable, Jesus asked, “Didn’t you ever read in the Scriptures? Psalm 118:22 ‘The stone rejected by the builders has now become the Cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous to see.’” Ephesians 2:20 tells us that Jesus is the chief corner stone in the structure of God’s house (see Psalm 118:22, Isaiah 28:16).
What is the vineyard now? The vineyard for us is everything God has given to us. We are the tenants looking after the vineyard that God has given to us. What is our attitude to the vineyard? You and I are tenants of many vineyards.
The vineyard of your marriage: are you looking after it? Is it bearing proper fruit?
The vineyard of your family: mother – father; son – daughter?
The vineyard of this parish: Are we listening to the Word of God, living it, proclaiming it? Are we drawing others to Christ?
And finally, each one of us is the tenant of a special vineyard called our soul. It is the most important vineyard of all. What condition is it in? Is it bearing fruit?
Are we grateful for everything God has given to us? Are we like the tenants acting as if we own everything God has given to us and forgetting that we are to produce fruit for God? Are we forgetting about the Giver who has given us all these beautiful gifts?
Yes dear brothers and sisters in John 15:16 Jesus says, “I chose you from the world to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Parables are narrative time bombs. The parables were meant to blast people into new awareness, new understandings, and new ideas.
This parable is one of only three that appears in all of the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Curiously, some of Jesus' best-known parables (like the Good Samaritan) occur in one gospel alone but nowhere else. Only the parables of The Sower, The Mustard Seed, and The Tenants get repeated in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Today's gospel calls for responsibility and accountability in our dealings with God, which include our dealings with our fellow human beings.
Let us also identify all the players of the parable. The vineyard is the nation of Israel -- the chosen people of God. The owner of the vineyard is God. The tenants are the religious leaders of Israel who were responsible for the cultivation of fruitful holiness and the wellbeing of the people of Israel. The servants sent by the landowner are the prophets who God sent to warn, to encourage, to challenge and to reassure; yet they were often greeted with threats of violence and even death. The son in the story is Jesus who is sent by His heavenly Father.
The parable teaches us a lot about God and how God relates to us. First we see the PROVIDENCE of God. "There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower"(Matthew 21:33a). Before God entrusts a responsibility to you, He makes provision for all that you will need in carrying out the responsibility.
"Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country" (verse 33b). This shows God's TRUST in us. We all have at least received life from God. Life is given to us in trust. We are expected to cultivate and manage this life in such a way that it bears good fruit - fruit that we can present to God the owner of our lives on the day of reckoning. God does not stand looking over our shoulders, policing us to make sure we do the right thing. God leaves the job to us and goes on vacation to a far country, so to say. God trusts that we will do the right thing. Unfortunately many of us don't. The story also highlights God's PATIENCE with us. God sends messenger after messenger to the rebellious managers who would not render to God what is His due. Our God is a patient God. Just as the landowner sent several servants in multiple waves to collect his payment of produce, God also seemingly gives us chance after chance to respond to his unique call to us. Do we recognize and appreciate the patience of God? With each messenger, God provides another chance for us to put an end to rebellion and do the right thing. Finally there comes a last chance. God plays His last card and sends His only son. If we miss this last chance, then we've missed it. In the end we see God's JUDGMENT in which rebellious humanity lose their very lives, and their privileges are transferred to others who are more promising. The picture is that of a provident, trusting, patient, but also just God.
There is lot more to understand. First we see human PRIVILEGE. Like the managers of the vineyard, everything we have is a privilege and not a merit. This is what we mean when we say that everything is God's grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Another word for this is privilege. Life itself is a privilege which can be taken away from any of us at any moment. Privilege comes, however, with RESPONSIBILITY. We are ultimately responsible and accountable to God for the way we use or abuse our God-given privileges. God has given us all that we need to make a judicious use of all our privileges, yet we retain the ability to abuse them. This is called FREEDOM.
St John Vianney used to try to move his people to love one another, to love God, to be faithful to their Mass, to their marriage partner but he couldn’t and he wept. They asked him ‘Why do you cry?’ and he said ‘because you won’t’.
In the final verses of this parable, Jesus asked, “Didn’t you ever read in the Scriptures? Psalm 118:22 ‘The stone rejected by the builders has now become the Cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous to see.’” Ephesians 2:20 tells us that Jesus is the chief corner stone in the structure of God’s house (see Psalm 118:22, Isaiah 28:16).
What is the vineyard now? The vineyard for us is everything God has given to us. We are the tenants looking after the vineyard that God has given to us. What is our attitude to the vineyard? You and I are tenants of many vineyards.
The vineyard of your marriage: are you looking after it? Is it bearing proper fruit?
The vineyard of your family: mother – father; son – daughter?
The vineyard of this parish: Are we listening to the Word of God, living it, proclaiming it? Are we drawing others to Christ?
And finally, each one of us is the tenant of a special vineyard called our soul. It is the most important vineyard of all. What condition is it in? Is it bearing fruit?
Are we grateful for everything God has given to us? Are we like the tenants acting as if we own everything God has given to us and forgetting that we are to produce fruit for God? Are we forgetting about the Giver who has given us all these beautiful gifts?
Yes dear brothers and sisters in John 15:16 Jesus says, “I chose you from the world to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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