Talents: the perspective of love

Roman Rite

XXXIII Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A -  November 19,2023
Pr 31,10-13.19-20.30-31; Ps 128; 1ts 5,1-6; Mt 25,14-30


Ambrosian Rite
Is 51,7-12a; Ps 48; Rom 15,15-21; Mt 3,1-12
Second Sunday of Advent - 'The Children of the Kingdom' - Year B


1) Talents: love lived as responsibility.
          The parable of the talents (Mt 25,14-30), which is proposed this Sunday, is placed between the parable of the ten virgins (Mt 25,1-13), which was meditated last Sunday, and the passage of the final judgment (Mt 25,31-46), which will be read next Sunday. 
          The parable of the ten virgins made us meditate on prudent vigilance: the kingdom of God can come at any moment and, therefore, prudence is necessary to be prepared for its coming. The parable of the talents makes us reflect on active vigilance and, therefore, dwells on the growth of the Kingdom that happens when we use the gifts received to serve. Next Sunday, the story of the final judgment will remind us how to enter the Kingdom: we enter when we are active in charity towards our neighbor, especially when we welcome the "least".
          To understand well this Sunday’s parable, it must be remembered that the "talents" (contrary to what is often said) are not so much the gifts or abilities (intelligence or other) that God has given to each one of us but rather the responsibilities that we are called to assume. In fact, the parable tells that the master gave " To one five talents; to another, two; to a third, one, to each according to his abilility.

          The first two servants are the image of industriousness and enterprise: they trade what has been entrusted to them and deliver twice what they have received. Therefore, they are called "good and faithful". The third, on the other hand, is lazy, passive: he does not traffic, does not take risks, but limits himself to "keeping", therefore, is defined as "bad, lazy", and "good for nothing". The contrast is between industriousness and laziness.

          The central teaching of this parable, even if it has affected the historical and social level promoting an active and enterprising mentality in the Christian populations, concerns the spirit of responsibility with which to welcome the Kingdom of God: responsibility towards God and towards humanity.

          Today, Jesus teaches us to use his gifts well. He calls every man to life and gives him talents at the same time entrusting him with a mission to accomplish. It would be foolish to think that these gifts are due, just as it would be a failure to use them for the purpose of one’s own existence. Commenting on this Gospel passage, St Gregory the Great notes that no one is lacking in the Lord’s gift of his charity and love. He writes: "It is therefore necessary, my brothers, that you take every care in the custody of charity in every action that you must carry out" (Homilies on the Gospels 9,6). And after having specified that true charity consists in loving friends as well as enemies, he adds: "if one lacks this virtue, he loses every good he has, he is deprived of the talent received and is thrown out into darkness" (ibid).

 

2) Talent par excellence.

          However, I would like to recall that the talent par excellence, the most precious of the gifts, is Jesus himself whom God offered to the world with immense love. 

          This gift is given to the disciples who today are us. We are disciples not so much and not only because we have accepted the doctrine of Christ and strive to observe his ethical precepts, but because we have welcomed Him who, the unpredictable gift of God entering our flesh, makes us children of God and fruitful operators of new fruits. 

          Then as today, the disciples of Jesus are attentive, vigilant to welcome the ever-new gift of God’s wonder and faithful in letting the received gift bear fruit and multiply. 

          An example of how being disciples of Jesus and "good and faithful servants" comes to us from consecrated virgins, who are

          - "good servants", because they do not live for themselves building on their own gifts, but live life as a gift received and to be shared because they feel that the gift received asks to be given to continue to bear fruit. 

          - "faithful servants", because they abandon themselves totally every day, I would say, every moment to Christ with loving trust. “Faithfulness is the perfection of love" (Saint Escrivà de Balaguer) and redeems time (cf. Eph 5:16).

          Virginity is the highest way of living the parable of the "talents", because with the consecration of all of self, the person who offers herself to God, opens her heart to the great and liberating gift of Christ. By freeing their heart so as to kindle it more with charity towards God and towards all men, the consecrated virgin testifies that the kingdom of God and his justice are the precious pearl that must be preferred to every other great value, and the talent that must be made fruitful.

          “This is why the Church, throughout her history, has always defended the superiority of this charism with respect to that of marriage, because of the quite unique link it has with the kingdom of God. Despite having renounced physical fertility, the celibate persone becomes spiritually fruitful, father and mother of many, cooperating in the realization of the family according to God’s plan (Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio,16).
          The consecrated virgin in a special way shares the Talent-Christ. 
          Finally, it should not be forgotten that today’s parable insists on the inner, I would say, virginal attitude with which to welcome and value this gift. The wrong attitude is that of fear: the servant who is afraid of his master and fears his return, hides the coin under the ground and it does not produce any fruit. This happens, for example, to those who, having received Baptism, Communion and Confirmation, bury these gifts under a blanket of prejudices, under a false image of God that paralyzes faith and works, and doing so they betray the expectations of the Lord. The parable highlights the good fruits brought by the disciples who, happy for the gift received, did not keep it hidden with fear and jealousy, but made it bear fruit, sharing it, participating in it. Yes, what Christ has given us multiplies by giving it! It is a treasure made to be spent, invested, shared with all:
          "Virginity has the symbolic value of love that does not need to possess the other, and thus reflects the freedom of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is an invitation to the spouses to live their conjugal love in the perspective of definitive love for Christ, as a common journey towards the fullness of the Kingdom" (Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, n. 160).
          Finally, let us keep in mind that God gives us all Christ and all "his goods", "according to the abilities of each one". 
           Now, everything depends on how each one responds with his own freedom to the responsibility entrusted to him freely by the one who, by also giving him his "own goods", wants to involve "his servants" in a project of joy and happiness. Let us strive to be "vigilant" disciples and to live life as a space of freedom entrusted to us by a God who knows each one of us personally and gives each one of us his own goods to live intensely his own life. Everything is a gift: life, trust, Love, freedom are gifts to be lived without fear. What is asked is only to welcome the gift and not to suffocate it, not to hold back it, not to make Love vain.