Jesus shares with us his anointing and mission to bring the Good News to the poor.  He gives tasks to each one according to one’s ability.

By the grace of God, we have the ability to believe in Jesus.  But when he comes after a long time, will he find faith on earth?

Will we still have this ability though we have been waiting a long time for our Savior’s coming?  Or will we let up, disappointed that our hope may have cheated us of the happiness of the now?  Will not our hearts grow cold as we face many trials, woes and crises?

It is due to such questions that the Church urges us today to live up to our potential.  We are to add to the goods that Jesus entrusts us according to our ability.  That is to say, to keep alive our faith, hope and love means to trade with our gifts from Jesus.

And to trade with them can mean God’s challenge to “those who believe in him to ‘go forth’” (EG 20).  For our call is to leave our own comfort zone.  We are challenged “to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel.”

Ability, readiness and courage to take risks and to be creative

Of course, such outreach means risks.  That is so since we can end up bruised, hurt and dirty (EG 49; see also 45 and 88).  But it is better for one to take such risks than to be sick from being closed.  From clinging to one’s security.  One cannot be like the snails who shut themselves in their shells (SV.EN XII:81).

Rightly, then, does the Master judge the wicked, lazy and fearful servant who buries his talent in the ground.  He neither stirs grace into flame nor grasps that God has not given us a spirit of cowardice (2 Tim 1, 6-7).

The truth is that God has given us a spirit of power, love and self-control.  And love drives out fear (1 Jn 4, 18).  Self-control, in turn, helps us find out Jesus’ will.  And power, for its part, drives us to do what is right.

Each Christian, yes, must know the path that the Lord points out (EG 20).  “Each in his or her own way”; it is not enough for us to just copy (GE 11; see also “God Is In The Detail”).  Christ showed Francis of Assisi what to do; may Christ, too, show us our part.

Hence, we have to ask (SV.EN XI:314), “Lord, if you were in my place, what would you do?”  And we have to be men and women of prayer, too (SV.EN XI:76).  And to learn besides from the Lord’s Supper to love in a creative way (SV.EN XI:131]).

Lord Jesus, grant that we be children of the light indeed.  And give us the ability that is like that of the worthy wife, so that we may build a world of peace and justice.  Thus, then, shall we hasten your coming.

15 November 2020
33rd Sunday in O.T. (A)
Prov 31, 10-13. 19-20. 30-31; 1 Thes 5, 1-6; Mt 25, 14-20