My dear friends,
Today in the gospel we hear the parable of the talents, and I want to focus specifically on the third servant who buried the one talent his master gave him in the ground.
The third servant had been blessed. Sure he hadn’t been blessed with as many talents as the other two servants, but he was still blessed, nonetheless. Yet he chose to do nothing with what he had. He feared his Master. He feared success. He thought it would be safer to hide what his master had given to him instead of putting it to good use. The other servants were bold and put their talents to work. Upon their master’s return they were justly rewarded with those words we all hope to hear one day in heaven: “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy.”
The truth is that there are many Christians like the third servant who fear putting their talents and knowledge of their faith to use afraid of what the world might say. The Christian who buries his or her talent in the ground is in a way being selfish and not sharing the blessings the Lord has bestowed on them. They are called to always share their talent: not tomorrow, but now! Could you imagine if our musicians here never opened their mouths to sing or played an instrument for fear of failure? Could you imagine if I, as a priest, never said yes to God because I feared getting up and preaching his Word to hundreds of people every week? We cannot be afraid, and we cannot be content with mediocrity. As Christians, we have to multiply the blessings the Lord has given to us. If things don’t go our way at first, we keep on trying because the Lord is depending on us to spread his Good News through the abundance of talents that he has bestowed on each and every person in our parish. We cannot be fearful of what the world has to say or how other people will react. It’s time we started putting Christianity back in the mainstream and reject the notion that we have an antiquated and outdated faith that should be practiced privately and out of view. We have to put our talents at the service of the Kingdom of God which is present in the here and now. We have to multiply our blessings and share them with the world. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and let the world transform us when we should be transforming the world with the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We definitely have to be bold like the first two servants and set the world on fire for Christ because that is what is required of every Christian. To do less is to condemn ourselves to the same fate as the lazy and fearful servant. We must be Christians of conviction that aren’t ashamed to say that we are Christian and to act like a people worthy of that name. Moreover, we should be people that aren’t ashamed of saying with pride that we are Roman Catholic and that we uphold all that our Holy Church teaches and professes! Of course, being bold and courageous for the gospel in this increasingly secular world is difficult, but we cannot be fearful, and we cannot give less than what we have been blessed with. To do so would be downright sinful. If we fold in the face of adversity, we will never experience the joy that the first two bold servants were offered by their master. Basically, it all comes down to this: at the end of our life we will stand before the Lord and he will ask us if we maximized the talents and blessings that he bestowed on us. May each of us share with the world what the Lord has given to us, so that we may one day hear those glorious words: “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy.”
God bless you all,
