September 19, 2010
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done! Amos 8:7
If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Luke 16:11-13
Piety
“No person can serve two masters.” Piety is how we serve Christ. Leaving a car door open can be an invitation to the evil spirit. It only took a few moments for a book on tapes to be gone. A change purse went with it. Leaving a door unlocked was but a moment of distraction. I did not want to put the evil spirit to work. I look at how irritated I am with myself and have to laugh. But it is a hollow sounding laugh. I do not like being so dumb that I would leave something out to be taken. It is a simple statement to say God is love. God is unable to not love us in each moment of our lives. Each moment is a chance for us to see what the Lord is saying to us as we reflect on what is happening or happened in the moment that disturbs us. How is God’s love in a small loss? To have a small loss and to be bothered by it reveals the importance of the ordinary in our lives. As our gospel tells us, we reveal to others by our being trustworthy in small matters that we can be trusted in the big moments of our lives. The little moments of our lives reveal what we are made out of. Our piety challenges us to love God in the little things of our lives. Personal space violated teaches us to be respectful of the personal space of others. We serve our heavenly Master in how we serve our companions of life. How we serve one another present to us in the now reveals how we serve the God we do not see. How should we serve Christ?
Study
We profit by the study of the lives of the Saints because we see men and women who were able to give their all to what they were doing. We need to be honest to ourselves by studying how much of ourselves we put into the job we are doing. We give too little when we give less than our all. When we study Christ we realize he loved us just as the Father loved him. Study allows us to grow in loving each other even as Christ has loved us. No greater love has anyone than to give their lives for the sake of their neighbor.
Action
Our moment now makes all of our life worthwhile once we realize it only takes the moment we are in to change the world we are living in for the better. That is the best reason for putting out our best effort. Our stewardship is seen in all the actions of our lives. We do not need to wait upon something we think is worthy of our time and energy to put out our best effort in what we are doing. The Sacrament of the Present Moment is built around how the ordinary of life can be truly extraordinary. We have a God potential in our lives by giving all of ourselves to the person we are with. Now is the start of the whole rest of our lives. Now is the only moment that touches the eternal now that is heaven. The most important action of our lives is always what we are doing now. This is the moment good and pleasing to God for which our whole lives have been prepared for. We are the profitable servants when we open our hearts and give our lives to what we are doing NOW for the sake of Christ in each other. Then we are serving only one master. Dumb moments of little losses can be changed into great moments of real gain. Christ our Master makes all we do worthwhile.
