33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A); November 19, 2023

Prv 31 Ps 128. 1 Thes 5:1-6. Mt 25:14-20

 Deacon Jim McFadden

There are a myriad number of laws of nature that obtain anywhere in the cosmos. For example, it’s simply a law that objects fall according to a gravitational pull. There’s the law of energy which is equal to Mass squared by the speed of light. There’s the law of light that states a rainbow will show itself according to the color spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Just as there are laws that govern the empirical domain, there are laws that govern the spiritual order as well. They’re not quite like the physical laws that are relatively easy to determine and have a universal consensus. These are trickier, but nonetheless, they do exist, and great masters of the interior life have discerned them.

Our Gospel today explicates the most fundamental law of the spiritual life, the greatest pattern of the spiritual order that determines whether we are in right relationship with God and our neighbor. St. John Paul Il in his book Love and Responsibility called it the Law of the Gift. Put succinctly: the divine life increases in you in the measure that you give your life away.

To our individualistic, self-referential society this sounds, at first glance, to be counterintuitive–to be foolish to the extreme.  This prescription goes against everything our culture advocates. Nonetheless, it strikes a deep cord of truth within the heart of every human being. By describing this reality as a law, Pope Karol Wojtyla made it clear that generosity is not an option, not something that we can take or leave. It’s not like there’s some kind of moral equivalence between the acquisitive pursuit of the goods of the world and a life of self-giving. No! One path leads to diminishment of the human person whereas the other promotes human fulfillment. Just as selfishness can take many forms, so does our self-giving, depending on our talents and circumstances. But, the Law of the Gift is an objective, universal norm, written into our humanity. We can no more ignore it than we can deny the Law of Gravity.

The Law of the Gift, while real,  is nonetheless, a great mystery. At the heart of this gift is a fundamental conviction that in surrendering our private autonomy to another, my beloved, gain so much more. As Jesus teaches us, “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it” (Lk 17:33). By sharing my life with another, my own life is not diminished but is profoundly enriched. As St. John Paul II  put it, “The lover ‘goes outside’ the self to  find a fuller existence in another” (p. 121).

In an age of vigorous individualism, this approach to life is very difficult to understand. Why should  I go outside myself to find happiness? Why can’t I be self-contained and pursue happiness through the acquisition of wealth, success, pleasure, and power? Why would I want to commit myself to someone else in such a radical way? Why would I want to give up my freedom to do whatever I want with my life. These are questions modern persons asks.

But, a Christian asks different questions because they accept that their life is not about themselves but is about God. Put simply, my life is  not about “doing my own thing.” Rather, it is fulfilling my relationship with God that is realized with the people that God has placed in my life. This is where we find fulfillment: in living our relationships well necessarily entails the giving and receiving of life, which can only be done through sacrifice. We surrender our own will to that of our heavenly Father by serving the good of others. This is why we discover a deeper happiness in life because we are living how God operates: namely, total self-giving, committed love. As one of Pope JP Il’s favor lines from Vatican Il says, “Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 24).

The parable in today’s Gospel draws us into the mystery of this fundamental law. There is an owner, a master, who is obviously Jesus, who has a number of servants, who are us. He is going on a journey, but before he goes, he entrusts them with talents: one with five, one with two, and one with one.

What are the ‘talents’? I would say that they are particular shares of the Divine Life. They are the divine inheritance that the Lord entrusts to us, his Church. Since these gifts come from the Lord, they are very precious treasures because they are grounded in his very being. We are not only to safeguard these talents, but to make them fruitful because the divine life is generative.

Let’s look at the third servant, the one with one talent, who buries it, hoping to guarantee that he’ll be able to give it back to the owner just as he has received it. When the owner returns, he praises the first two four doubling the amount talents given. Why? They’ve gotten it. They have understood the dynamics at play within the spiritual realm. They got the Law of the Gift—that’s why they’re being praised.

But, he upbraids the third servant because he is clueless. “The hole that is dug into the soil by the wicked and slothful servant” (Mt 25:18) points to the fear of risk, of keeping one’s inheritance just for myself so I can get to Heaven, which stops the dynamism of love within us. Jesus does not ask us to store his grace within a safe-deposit box! He wants us to use our talents-our time, gifts, and resources-for the good of others. And, when we do, these gifts increase. Jesus is virtually telling us: here is my mercy, my tenderness, my forgiveness– take them and make good use of them by sharing them with others.

And, he will ask us, “What have you done with them? How many people have been uplifted by your faith? How many have been encouraged by your hope? How much love have you shared with your neighbor?”

This parable urges us not to conceal our faith and our belonging to Jesus, not to bury the Word of God, but let us circulate them in our lives: in our family and parish, in our workplace, in our political, economic, and social domains. This is challenging stuff: we’re being called not to stay enclosed within ourselves, but to allow the Good News to work its power within us. But, if we keep it to ourselves,   it ceases to be Divine Life. The worst thing we can do is to bury it away, saying we will make it our own little private possession. That’s precisely how we will lose it.

So, the question is ‘how do we live?’ What do we do with the talents God has given us? Let us look to our Blessed Mother, Mary Most Holy who received a great gift: Jesus himself.  Mary did not keep Jesus to herself; she gave him to the world; to his people.  Let us do the same.  Amen.