We tend to approach things from the perspective of secular holidays these days, even to the point of almost having a retail calendar that dictates the season. Halloween is often not even begun before we begin to see Christmas and Thanksgiving decorations. As we approach Thanksgiving, we often forget that we too are approaching the end of another liturgical year. As a Church, we have journeyed scripturally from the annunciation and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, through His earthly life, Passion, Death, and Ressurection. We’ve lived the experience of Pentecost and His Ascension into Heaven. Now we approach the end of our liturgical cycle as we look forward to the end of Time with our feast of Christ the King when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
In the readings today we see one of the most familiar of parables when Jesus reminds us that it’s not enough to just receive the gifts that God has given us, but also that we must use them. We also see the continuation of the story from Maccabees in which the children of the mother stand up for their faith, even to the point of dying to the corrupt government. Both of these are important for us to look at and understand as we pause our lives secularly to remember to give thanks for all the gifts we have received, we as Catholics should remember to never separate our faith from our daily life (and vice versa). Here we are another year gone by: have we grown? Have we changed? Have we improved in our spiritual life? Have we increased in virtue and decreased in vice?
Our Gospel reminds us that God expects us to do something with our gifts. The one servant doesn’t even bother to put it in the bank but hides it in the ground. When the King comes back, he doesn’t even get the basic interest of having invested it. God wants us to instead to invest it in others. That’s the thing about love, isn’t it? It is a gift that when given, grows. When we hold onto it for ourselves, when we bury it and never use it, it doesn’t grow. Every gift we have is a gift of love. Every skill, every hope, every dream… is an opportunity for God’s love to expand out from us into a world that very much needs it. A world that needs men and women who stand up for their faith. Who take a stand and say: I will not abandon my faith. Who declare with the mother of the seven a faith so strong that she already believed God would raise her children again. Her greatest fear was that the last one would not be strong enough to join the others, because she didn’t want just one of her kids in heaven but all of them.
So again, have you invested your talents? I think we should take some time today to really ask ourselves that question in earnest. Where was I this time last year, and where am I today? Because just as the liturgical year is going to end, so too will our lives. We are not guaranteed a schedule there. In a world where we bicker and fight about everything, looking for a reason to be offended or to doubt others, imagine if we lived our lives as if today were the last day? Think about that for a moment. How many times have we seen bucket lists? Or some meme that says If today were your last 24 hours, how would you live it? For someone, maybe even someone who is reading this, that could be a reality. As Christians, every moment of our lives should reflect the life of Jesus, that’s the very reason we have a liturgical year. To remind us of His life, so we can bring our lives to reflect it in some way. When He had 24 hours left to live, knowing that He was going to die soon, He washed the feet of His Disciples. With 24 hours to go, the only thing on His mind was you. How then will you use the time you have left?
A reflection on the readings for November 20th, 2019: Wednesday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time.