33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A

Sunday, November 19, 2023

This Week’s Readings | USCCB

“The day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). The readings for this week continue to invite us to ruminate about the second coming of Jesus when the kingdom of God will come in its fullness. The parable of the Talents in today’s Gospel signals to us that we all will be adjudicated by God at the end of time. Talents, in this parable do not refer to skills or abilities. A talent in Roman times was approximately 6,000 denarii and each denarius was the typical wages for a day’s labor. So, a single talent is the wages for 20 years of labor working 6 days each week. So even a single talent was a substantial amount of money.

In the story told by Jesus, a master who has three servants gives five talents to one servant, two to another and one to the third. The master goes away but he doesn’t tell the servants what to do with what he gave them nor does he tell them when he’s returning. The first two servants used their five and two talents and doubled them. The third servant buried what the master gave him. In this parable, God is the master and He gives us, His servants, these talents. They are not ours, we are simply entrusted with them for a time, until the master returns. So, what do we do with these talents?

All that we are and all we have is God’s gift to us. Life, breath, abilities, and everything within us comes from God and belongs to God. We’re simply entrusted with it for a time. Do we use these gifts to glorify Him or for our own glory?

Let us not think that the number of gifts given to us matters. We can’t compare our gifts with those of others around us and make it deter us from using and growing talents given to us for God’s glory. Notice in Jesus’ words that the master responded to each of the first two servants with the same identical response. To the servant with five talents and also to the one with two talents he said: “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.” (Matthew 25:21 and 23). As the master did with the third servant, God will hold us accountable for how we used, grew and shared our gifts.

Speaking to a crowd of 100,000 people at St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said: “A Christian who withdraws into himself, hiding all that the Lord has given him, is not a Christian! I would ask the many young people present to be generous with their God-given talents for the good of others, the Church and our world.”

Share your faith and it will grow.

Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord.