SUNDAY: HOMILY FOR 33RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR I)

SUNDAY: HOMILY FOR 33RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR I)

Theme: Knowing How to Use What We Have

By: Fr. Luke Ijezie

Proverbs 31:10-13,19-20,30-31;
Psalm 128:1-5;
1Thessalonians 5:1-6;
Matthew 25:14-30.

We usually succeed in life when we can achieve our goals with what we have. The wise person is the one who knows how to use what he or she has. Being wise goes deeper than accumulating knowledge. Wisdom has to do with right judgement and ability to achieve goals in every situation. We need wisdom to be in good relationship with God and human beings. The readings of this thirty-third Sunday shows how the wise person succeeds in diverse situations.
1. The wise person knows what to do in order to run the home successfully. The foolish person, instead, easily scatters the home. The first reading from Prov 31:10-31 presents the dutiful wife as the model of wisdom in the home. She is regarded as a woman of substance as she uses her intelligence and practical skills to enhance the wellbeing of her family.
2. The psalmist stresses the point that success in life depends on what one does with one’s hands: “By the labour of your hands you shall eat.” It is both a blessing and a statement of fact. The one who works hard never goes begging. There is dignity and reward in labour, and human improvement of the world comes through labour. Refusal to work creates many social ills, and this frustrates the work of developing one’s environment and society. Laziness is the inability to utilize what we have to achieve success.

ALSO RECOMMENDED: HOMILY FOR 33RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A 

3. The second reading from 1 Thess 5:1-6 presents the successful person as the one who knows how to read the times and seasons and know what is expected in them. Life should be lived with watchfulness and meaningful engagement as opportunities come when we hardly expect. So is the encounter with God. Only those who are always prepared meet him with joy and peace. We need to be conscious of the fact that we live in a world enveloped in darkness. So, our light should always be shining.
4. In the Gospel from Matt 25:14-30, Jesus tells the parable of the talents to make concrete the point that much depends on how we use the gifts we have. The parable praises the virtues of hard work and resourcefulness and condemns laziness. The two servants who develop their talents are praised and richly rewarded while the lazy servant is condemned and punished. The problem is not about the quantity of talents received but the wisdom to use what is given, however small or big. The logic of the lazy servant was that conserving what one has received is more important than developing it. In fact, his later response to his master betrays this mindset coupled with some accumulated animosity: “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours” (Matt 25:24-25).
The master rightly calls him a wicked and slothful servant. Surely, the master knew his servants and gave each according to his ability. Equality in life is not necessarily reckoned or measured by the quantity of possessions but by the quality of life, how we use what we have.
5. As a matter of fact, greedy and jealous people are never happy, because they never get satisfied with what they have. We can imagine how frustrated God would be working with such people. We are often that way. We keep complaining even when we have all it takes to make changes in our lives. God keeps reminding us that His grace is enough for us (cf. 2 Cor 12:9). We are often bundles of wasted talents and wasted opportunities. We often remain weaklings in spirituality and human development because we lack the wisdom and practical skills to put to use the immense gifts we have as individuals and as groups.
May God continue to inspire us to realise how blessed we already are, and may He give us the wisdom to make effective use of our different endowments, all for our good, the good of the society and for the greater glory of His name!

FOR SIMILAR HOMILY, CLICK HERE >>>