-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter on the back of the parish bulletin or at www.saint-albert.org/lincletter
-I will be celebrating mass at our Lady of Grace at 4 PM on Saturday and 11 AM on Sunday and at St. Albert at 6:00 PM on Sunday
Has God Given You Anything?
The parable of the talents which we hear in Matthews gospel today as we come to the end of this liturgical year raises the question in my mind as to whether or not we as individuals and as a community can acknowledge any of the gifts in our lives as coming from God. So often I am in conversation with others and in reflection upon my own life regarding life‘s project, purpose, mission, goals, fulfillment, etc. In those conversations I am amazed how infrequently God‘s purpose, God's gifts, and God‘s mission comes up.
What I mean is that we as believers can often times in our daily lives operate like contemporary secular atheists- living as if there is no God. Everything is about my skills, my talents, my goals, my retirement, my health, my kids, my success, and our struggles in all of it. Very infrequently is God acknowledged.
The gospel text says that the king gave the talents to servants according to their abilities. So the master was not asking anything of the servants that they were not “up to“. But it was not just the talents that they received-the ability is also a gift from God.
Father Richard Rohr has often quoted the five lessons of primitive societies male initiation rites. The first one is 1. You are going to die. The second one is 2. Your life is not about you. As we come to the end of this liturgical year and as we approach the great feast of Thanksgiving in our nation I wonder how many of us Recognize the abilities and talents and people in our lives as gifts of God. In recognizing them as such our gratitude can be turned to God. If we don’t recognize them as having their origin in God, then who are we thanking? The great pumpkin? Ask your atheist neighbor or your enlightened secularist college student who is celebrating Thanksgiving with you, "what gift are we acknowledging here and who gave it? To whom are we grateful?
Has God Given You Anything?
