Sunday 15th November

33rd Sunday Ordinary Time

First Reading Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31 A worthy wife is invaluable

Second Reading 1 Thes 5:1-6 You are children of the light

Gospel Matthew 25:14-30 The rich man, his servants and the talents

REFLECTION by Dianne Bergant CSA

It is not enough that we wait patiently. We are expected to be industrious as we await the advent of the reign of God. We have all been entrusted with talents that really belong to God, and we must use these talents to the best of our ability in the interim between the Lord’s departure and his final return. The ideal wisdom figure in the first reading is a model of such industriousness.

Fidelity to the reign of God requires that we be willing to take risks. We do not know the time of the Lord’s coming, and so there will have to be a kind of tentativeness to all of our plans. We will never be able to be certain that they will be brought to fruition. We must spend and be spent without the assurance that we will be able to reap the rewards of our investment. To refuse to risk is to refuse to trust.

If we have been wise and have industriously employed the Lord’s talents, which were entrusted to us, we will be richly rewarded. However, if we have not realised the potential that is possessed by our talents, and if we have not employed them as they were meant to be employed, we will be punished. The foolish man in the gospel knew that the householder was exacting. He had some idea of what to expect. He made his choice and he had to accept the consequences of that choice.