OMELIE / Omelie EN

19 nov 2023

19/11/2023 - 33rd Sunday of the O.T. - Year A

19/11/2023 - 33rd Sunday of the O.T. - Year A

1st reading Prv 31,10-13.19-20.30-31 from Psalm 127 2nd reading 1Th 5,1-6 Gospel Mt 25,14-30

It is our desire to know... how the story of our life will end. Today, the Word wants to speak to us precisely about this and help us to appropriately shape the time that passes and that we can still freely manage.

God does not tell us how it will end for us, but shows us the two possible paths and the goal of both. We will then choose. In this world we are present with all that God has endowed us with: time, material things, physical and intellectual gifts, spiritual capacities, etc. We are not in this world just to receive, but to receive. We are not only in the world to receive, but also to give, to offer the gift of our life to others. Jesus tells us about this in a long parable.

A rich man sets out on a journey from which he will surely return. He entrusts his possessions to his servants, to each according to his ability. What will those servants do during his absence?

It is not difficult to understand that he wants to talk about himself. He is the man who is departing from this world and then will return in his glory. In departing, he hands over the great goods, which he has, to his servants. What will these do during his absence?

First of all, we ask ourselves what are these great goods that the Lord Jesus hands over to his servants, that is, to his disciples. He has neither money nor possessions to hand over. The possessions, or talents, that Jesus delivers to his servants are a great love for all men, a deep and abiding faith in the Father, a desire and willingness to forgive all sinners who receive him like Zacchaeus, or seek him like the paralytic, or call him like the thief. He then possesses a life-changing capacity for prayer and worship, and, in particular, the very Word of God and his Holy Spirit are his.

What will his disciples do during the time when they do not see their Lord beside them?

Jesus seeks to help them, so that after his departure they will not forget him, but remain oriented to his person even when they do not see him.

There will be the disciple who will live constantly in anticipation of the Lord's return, committing all his time and strength to him. These will ensure that faith, prayer, the ability to love, to forgive, and the Spirit and Word received, will bear that fruit that gives joy and glory to Jesus. Unfortunately, there will also be those who will forget him, who will hide both faith and prayer, and even the Spirit and the Word. These will live to please their own selfishness; they will live for themselves.

It is obvious that when the Lord will come in his glory, there will be a difference between the one and the other, because the difference is already there now: around the faithful disciple there grows prayer, faith, love, a life of communion that transforms society, while around the selfish disciple there remains emptiness, poverty, coldness.

Reading the parable, many of us are tempted to think that the talents Jesus speaks of are material goods, or intelligence, willpower, the ability to manage what passes through our hands. This is not wrong: even these gifts of God must come to give glory to him, to be and become signs of his great love for every man, for the small and the poor, for the defenceless and the helpless.

The first reading also helps us to read the parable in this way: the strong and admirable and truly beautiful woman is the one who is always engaged in her work, who serves not only her own family, but also the poor and wretched.

It is, on the other hand, quite wrong to assume that those who become filthy rich put their talents to good use. He who does not see the poor is not doing God's will. In any case, deep in the heart and at the beginning of the thoughts of the faithful man and disciple of Jesus is the precise and strong resolution to serve the loving will of his Lord!

The Lord will come for all and will ask everyone how and whether they have waited for him and loved him, and whether the spiritual gifts bestowed have borne fruit. This is why the Apostle tells us: "You know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night". And he concludes: "Let us therefore not sleep as others do, but let us be watchful and sober. We shall not occupy ourselves with passing matters, but with that which abides for ever, that is, in the heart of the Father.