Homily for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today we are given yet another Parable about the Lord’s Second Coming for our consideration. So, we will take a look at the Parable in light of our First Reading from the Book of Wisdom.

Although within the Parable there is a contrast provided between the two industrious servants and the fearful servant I think there’s a more interesting contrast presented between the fearful servant and the “worthy wife” in our First Reading. These two characters, not historical persons, but images presented for our learning, approach the work that has been entrusted to them with vastly different outlooks:

+ the Servant charged with investing his Master’s funds hides them, instead, out of fear. 
+ the Wife, engaged in the various duties of housekeeping and family life, sets into her work with love.

Let’s take a closer look at how each of these characters reflect something of ourselves and challenge us to prepare for the Lord’s Coming, which is the central message of these Sundays approaching the end of the Liturgical Year.

First, the hapless Servant as a manifestation of our lesser selves: Being alert and vigilant for the Lord’s Coming, whether at the moment of our own death or at His Second Coming at the End of Time cannot have a passive sense about it, simply waiting patiently for the Lord’s Coming as a distant eventuality. 

Preparedness involves working according to one’s abilities and life circumstances with faithfulness and responsibility. This is perhaps what brought about the paralyzing fear in our “Unworthy Servant.”

Certainly, dread or anxiety concerning God’s just judgment are not entirely wrongheaded: Fear of the Lord is one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. But this is a holy fear based in a sense of awe in God’s Presence, His Power, HisMercy, and His unimaginable Love.

This poor fellow fears the consequences of trying and failing, unaware of any mercy on the Master’s part. So, he falls into the sin of Acedia, which would involve for us: 
+ a passive outlook on faith
+ a laziness about spiritual activity — and —
+ underlying doubt concerning God’s love and mercy and, at worst, creeping doubt about God’s very existence.

The consequence of this spiritual inertia can be ultimate separation from God. People enact this separation in varying ways, such as becoming: pagan… atheist… agnostic… heathen… or apostate. What do these stages of separation look like?

A Pagan,
through, perhaps, no fault of his own, might never have heard of God, and therefore, worships idols or false gods as a means of seeking transcendence. In ancient days, one might have worshiped the Greek or Roman gods in a search for meaning or to make sense out of the cosmos.

Today’s “legitimate” pagans, if we can name them as such: Buddhists, Hindus, or Rastafarians, engage in this type of activity. Wrongly focused, or culturally conditioned, at least there is some activity… some search for something more in life. Today’s “illegitimate” pagans, making a pretext at religiosity, tend to follow our culture’s egregious search for the “big three”: the contemporary idols of money, sex and power.

An Atheist,
unlike the pagan, has, indeed, heard of God or even been schooled in some theology, but has chosen to reject the very notion of God. This often leads to Relativism, in which one holds that there is no universal or eternal truth: truth, therefore, is self-generated: (“You have your truth; I have mine.”) This mode of thought, an emanation of Pride, provided both the context and the outcome of Original Sin.

An Agnostic
proclaims that “Yes, there might be a God…” but claims Him to be un-knowable, so the agnostic will reject anything such as Divine Revelation, and therefore thrusts this doubt and self-aggrandizement against Organized Religion, often holding in contempt believers he sees as naïve, and further, rejects the inclusion of religious values or Christian Virtue within public life or law. I once saw a bumper-sticker which read: “I’m a Militant Agnostic: I don’t know, and neither do you.”

A Heathen
is a person who has been raised in the Faith, but has turned his back on his Church, citing the sin and hypocrisy of its members, or out of sheer laziness, claiming the Lord’s Day as his own. Some walk away… some fall away… and some just don’t care. The first time he skipped Sunday Mass and was not struck dead by lightning that afternoon, made the second and third skips easier. The danger of this type of Acedia is that it can lead to the aforementioned agnosticism, atheism, or even paganism.

Surely, we all know “Good People” who don’t go to Church, but they place their eternal souls in jeopardy without the Grace of the Sacraments, and in disobedience of God’s Holy Will for us as presented in His Third Commandment: Remeber to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

The Apostate
abandons his Faith in favor of the practice of a different religion, sect or cult. We generally think of apostates as those who renounce the Catholic Faith primarily for some non-Catholic religion or, perhaps, dabbling in some Oriental religion or even the Occult.

But this would also include departing the Catholic Church for one of the Protestant denominations. This is not a conversion, it is an abandonment, ultimately a failure. Apostasy, as seen here, is the willful rejection of Catholicism which, while not completely turning one’s back on Christ, the person separates himself from the Sacraments given to the Church by Christ for the Grace they supply for our sanctification.

Moving from one congregation to another within the Protestant sphere of influence generally does not present a problem for Protestant parents. But the abandonment of the Catholic Church for a Protestant denomination usually brings great sorrow to the family of the apostate.

Sometimes the departure is for mixed motives: Take for example my nephew: I overheard him speaking with one of his cousins about his apostasy, joining the local Lutheran church because of their “outstanding programs for kids.” He said, “Better a good Lutheran than a bad Catholic, heh heh.” He didn’t see me standing behind him, so as his Uncle and a priest I was compelled to challenge his faulty reasoning. “I don’t agree with that” I said… “and you know better… and, besides, you were never a bad Catholic, jut a bit lazy. I then reminded him, kindly, that at three different occasions he has made solemn promises to God to raise his children in the Catholic Faith:

+ when you signed the application for a Dispensation to marry a non-Catholic Christian
+ in the Rite of Marriage, as you stood before the Altar at your Wedding
+ at the Baptistry of your Church when presenting your son for Baptism.

“These were not promises you made to your Uncle; I continued, “these three promises you made to God.” He said he didn't remember making those promises, to which I responded, “But God will.” Our turning away from God may have subtle beginnings, but God is always aware of what we’re doing.

Looking back at the Parable, the word “talent” indicates money invested by the Master with his servants. But the talent of which Our Lord speaks is Grace: God’s own self-investment in us. If we squander the Grace, or do nothing with it, the consequences could be ominous.

Now we come to the “Worthy Wife” of the First Reading (which was read at my Mother’s funeral Mass). When the Author of the Book of Proverbs praises her industry, hers is not a “cottage industry” in which she hopes to earn a few shekels on the side. She is industrious in her Charity, the polar opposite of the fearful servant. Her faith is lived day-to-day using her talents and abilities for family harmony, loving God as she loves her family… a love that is extended, further, to the Poor. In this, she becomes a recipient of Actual Grace in her quiet, charitable works.

Dismissed by some modern listeners as “gender stereotyping,” this portrait of womanhood picks up on last Sunday’s Reading from the Book of Wisdom. You will remember that Wisdom there was described as feminine. This would suggest, further, that Wisdom manifests itself in charitable works,  be they that of a “worthy wife” or any person whose wisdom leads them beyond self-centeredness into self-sacrificing love, which seems to me, to be the essence of femininity.

If we, now, see something of the fearful servant within us, all is not yet lost. We can begin to make a move toward the “worthy wife” within, no matter our gender, which will be lived in faithful love for God.

In the end, as we see in today’s Readings, the connectedness of love, courage, prudence, and wisdom, Saint Paul’s words to us come alive and have profound meaning, as he says at this darkening time of the year: “You are not in darkness… you are children of the light.”