10 Nov 2017. Friday, Week 31

Saint Leo the Great, pope and doctor of the church. Memorial

1st Reading: Romans 15:14-21

Paul marvels at what God has done through him among the gentiles

I feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.”

Gospel: Luke 16:1-8

The worldly often take shrewd initiatives; the parable about the unjust manager

Jesus said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

Examining our Motives?

What motives and attitudes move us to act from day to day? Some are workaholics, distracted from serious reflection on what life is for or even about where the excessive activism is leading. A hurricane of urgency can sweep through our lives. To correct such a frenzy St Paul hopes that his readers are filled with all knowledge. Yet he does not canonize inactivity. In today’s text he even boasts of the work he has done for God. We can study his writings for signs of how to moderate our own activity.

The proper spirit to follow is the Holy Spirit, the spirit of adoption through which we become “heirs with Christ”. Paul dedicates himself to doing what the Spirit prompted him to do, to undertake difficult tasks, to preach where Christ’s name was unknown. Still, Paul did not succumb to a blind drive to get things done, but managed to keep a corner of his heart for contemplation, “eagerly awaiting the coming of our saviour.” His ideal was to nurture his believers “as gently as any nursing mother with her little ones” and he warmly appreciated the response of his converts.

Today’s gospel speaks in plain, everyday language. It invites to be enterprising and act with initiative. Jesus notes how worldly people possess these qualities more than the other-worldly. But in making good use of our bodies and human talents, we are serving the God who created us in the divine image and likeness and to offer spiritual sacrifice to God who dwells within us.

What can the unjust manager teach us?

This parable is puzzling. The main character is a steward who is dishonest and wasteful, as a result of which he is dismissed from his job. After being sacked he takes decisive action to provide for his future. Calling together his master’s creditors, he reduces the debts they owe, probably by cancelling the cut that he would have got for himself. In other words, he forfeited a short-term profit he would have received to win something more valuable, the goodwill and the hospitality of his master’s creditors. In a moment of crisis he realized that some things are more important than money and, on that basis, he took decisive action.

Jesus told this tale because we, the children of light, have something to learn from this shady character. As the steward used money that was due to him to gain himself friends on earth, the parable calls on us to use our resources to gain ourselves friends in heaven. We are to be generous with our resources here and now, and then we will experience God’s generosity in the future, in this life and beyond. As Jesus says elsewhere in the gospels, the measure you give is the measure you will get back.

Saint Leo the Great, pope and doctor of the Church

Leo I (c. 400-461) from Tuscany, was the first pope to have been called “the Great.” He succeeded Sixtus III as bishop of Rome in 440 and in 452 persuaded Attila the Hun to turn back from his invasion of Italy. He is most remembered theologically for writing the Tome which guided the debates of the Council of Chalcedon. Leo understood Christ’s being as the hypostatic union of two natures – divine and human – indivisibly united in one person of Jesus.