OT XXVI [C]: Am 6:1a, 4-7; 1Tm 6:11-16; Lk 16:19-31

The parable that Jesus speaks in today’s gospel reading is a very uncompromising parable, and a somewhat unsettling one for that reason. He told this story to challenge the great gulf that existed in his day between the extremely wealthy and the destitute. This was one of the gulfs that Jesus was passionate about eliminating. The story focuses on two individuals who are physically close but, in reality, inhabit different worlds which never meet, between which stands a great gulf. The parable doesn’t say that Lazarus was a good man because he was poor or that the rich man was a bad man because he was rich. Nothing is said about the moral status of either. However, the parable clearly criticizes the rich man for doing nothing when he could have done something that would have made a huge difference to the situation of the miserable man at his gate. The poor man had a modest longing - to eat the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. The rich man could have satisfied that modest longing without any loss to himself. A little was being asked for, but nothing was done. If the rich man had done the little that the poor man longed for him to do, the great gulf between them would have narrowed ever so slightly. Instead, he allowed the gulf to stand, and in the next life that gulf between them remained - only now it was the rich man whose modest longing for a drop of cold water could not be satisfied.

We can sometimes feel helpless before the enormity of the gulfs that exist between individuals, communities and nations. We feel there is nothing we can possibly do to bridge those gulfs. Yet, the parable in today’s gospel suggests that there is always something we can do to bridge gulfs between people, even if what we do is on a very small scale. If the rich man had satisfied the modest longing of Lazarus, it would not have fundamentally changed the great inequalities between the very rich and the very poor in the society of Jesus. However, it would have been a step in the right direction. One human being’s life would have changed for the better. Certainly, in Jesus’ eyes, that would have been no small thing. There is always something each of us can do to bring the kingdom of God nearer for someone, a gulf we can cross to engage with someone in a way that enhances that person’s well-being. The parable strongly suggests that the individual is all-important. The small acts of kindness for any one person are of great value in God’s eyes. On one occasion, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward’. A cup of water is nothing, at one level, and, yet, Jesus seems to be saying that the giving of it has eternal significance. The small act of kindness done for one person can bring heaven nearer for that person and for us. The parable suggests that the doing of a little, when it is within our power to do it, is infinitely better than doing nothing.

The story is about the rich man’s failure to notice. He must have seen Lazarus almost every day at his gate, but he saw him without noticing him. The gospel suggests that the rich man failed to notice not because he was too busy or in too much of a hurry, but because he was too self-absorbed; he was the servant of his wealth; he was so immersed in his own lifestyle that he had lost the ability to notice the likes of Lazarus at his gate. The gospel reading also suggests that his lifestyle so absorbed him that he had ceased to notice God or God’s call. If he had been attentive to God, he would have recognized that God was calling out to him through the wretched man who sat at his gate. The rich man had five brothers who were somewhat like himself. They, too, were self-absorbed, immersed in their own comfortable world; they too failed to notice what God was saying to them through Moses and the prophets; they too were not hearing God’s call to them through the sufferings of fellow human beings. 

When someone who appears to be in much greater need than I am crosses my path, I may be the really needy one, and that person may be my path to salvation. It is in noticing that person and responding that I become the person the Lord is calling me to be.

 The main theme of this Sunday’s readings is the warning that the selfish and extravagant use of God’s blessings, like wealth, with no share going to the poor and the needy, is a serious sin deserving eternal punishment. According to Pope Benedict XVI, today’s parable reminds us that while we are in this world, we should listen to the Lord who speaks through the Sacred Scriptures and live according to his will, for after death it will be too late to repent. Wealth without active mercy for the poor is great wickedness. We are all rich enough to share our blessings with others. God has blessed each one of us with wealth, health, special talents, social power, political influence or a combination of many blessings. May the good Lord inspire us to share with others what we have been given, in various ways, instead of using everything exclusively for selfish gains.

 OT XXV [C]: Am 8:4-7; I Tm 2:1-8; Lk 16:1-13 

Different people will react to a crisis situation in different ways. Some people tend to go to pieces in a crisis. They feel overwhelmed by the crisis and sink down under it. Then there are others who are at their best in a crisis. They stay calm in the midst of the crisis and get clarity as to the best course of action to take. They keep a cool head and find a way through the crisis for themselves and others.

The parable that we have just heard is probably one of the strangest parables that Jesus spoke. The main character in the story, a rich man’s steward, seems to be a bit of a rascal, but he has some good instincts. When he went about the business of reducing what the tenants owed his master, it was because he wanted to be welcomed into people’s homes when he was dismissed from his job. In his own perverse way, he was trying to make friends. When the chips were down and he was about to lose his good salary, he realized that what mattered most in life was not money but human relationships. Yes, he was trying to buy friends, but he had enough insight into himself to realize that he would need all the friends he could get.

 

       The tenants must have been delighted when their debts were reduced, but, in a way, they were now in debt to the steward and they would have to give him some hospitality after he was fired, at least until he found his feet again. There isn’t a great deal to admire about this steward. Yet, his rich employer had a grudging admiration for his steward’s energy, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness, his decisiveness. ‘The master praised the dishonest steward for his astuteness’, according to the last line of the parable.

 

       Jesus is saying that we need something of the steward’s astuteness, his decisiveness, his ingenuity, in our efforts to allow the light of Christ to shine through our lives. It took a serious crisis to bring home to the steward that people were more important than material possessions. I think we all know that other people are more important than possessions. It doesn’t take a crisis to bring that home to us. If we were asked what is most important to us in life, we would surely name people before material possessions, the people we love and who love us. Perhaps the steward didn’t have such loving relationships in his life and it took this crisis to bring this truth home to him.

 

We can all get our priorities wrong from time to time. We can give too much importance to what doesn’t really matter and not enough importance to what does matter. Sometimes it takes a crisis in our lives to help us to see everything more clearly. A health crisis can often bring home to us what really matters in life, how people are so much more important than work or possessions. Saint Ignatius of Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits. It was while he was recovering from a serious leg wound that he came to realize that, in the words of the gospel reading, he had been serving Mammon rather than God. While recovering, he allowed God to find him, to touch him deeply. He began to see everything with new eyes, with God’s eyes, and he went on to give his life to the service of the Lord.

 

In this parable Jesus implies that the qualities that the steward displayed in a crisis will also be very necessary in the service of God’s kingdom – in particular, his sense of urgency, his decisiveness, his cleverness, his imagination. If God’s kingdom is to come, the followers of Jesus will need all of these qualities. We cannot wait for God to do everything; decisive action from us is needed if God’s will is to be done among us, if the future God intends for our world is to come about.

 

 As disciples of Jesus, we are both children of this world and children of light. We live in the midst of the secular world and we can learn from how the secular world operates. Yet we are called to live in the secular world as those who have been enlightened by the gospel of Christ. We are called to allow the light of the gospel to shape the way that we live in the world. We are to bring the values of God’s kingdom to bear on that world where we live and work. We seek to promote God’s vision for our world.

 

In the end, the lesson of the Shrewd Manager is not about dishonesty but about urgency and foresight. Just as he acted decisively when he knew his time was short, so must we. Our life is brief, and our opportunity to use what we have for God’s Kingdom is fleeting. 

In 1997, Princess Diana of Wales—one of the most photographed, admired, and influential women of her time—died suddenly in a car accident at just 36 years old. She had wealth, fame, and the admiration of millions across the globe. Only hours before, she had been enjoying dinner and laughter, unaware that her life would be cut short that very night. The shocking news reminded the world that no amount of privilege or power can shield us from mortality. Her funeral drew millions into grief but also served as a stark reminder that life is fragile and fleeting.

Her story echoes the words of the Psalmist: “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow” (Psalm 144:4). No matter how high we rise or how much we possess, life remains temporary. Death does not ask whether we are rich or poor, young or old, powerful or powerless—it comes to all. What matters, therefore, is not the length of our days nor the abundance of our possessions, but how faithfully we live, love, and prepare for the eternal life to come.

May we, then, be as shrewd as this steward was—though not in dishonesty but in holy wisdom—using every resource entrusted to us for God’s glory, so that when our days are done, we may be welcomed joyfully into eternal dwellings by the One who said: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come enter into my joy”

 

 

 OT XXIV [C] (The Exaltation of the Holy Cross) (Nm 21:4b-9; Phil 2: 6-11; Jn 3: 13-17)

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is one of twelve “Master feasts” celebrated in the Church to honor Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master. This feast is celebrated to memorialize the first installation of the remnants of the true cross of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Mount Calvary.

Early in the fourth century, Saint Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ’s life. In AD 326, she razed the second-century Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior’s tomb. During the excavation, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman.

The Emperor built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Calvary, it was consecrated on September 14, AD 335, and the remains of the cross were installed in it by Archbishop Maccharios of Jerusalem. After three centuries, the Persians invaded Jerusalem, plundered it of all valuables and took with them the relic of the Holy Cross. In AD 630, Emperor Heraclius II defeated the Persians, recaptured the casket containing the holy relic, and reinstalled it in the rebuilt Church, which was destroyed by Muslims in 1009. The crusaders rebuilt it as the present Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1149. The largest fragment of the holy cross is now kept in Santa Croce Church in Rome. We have a small piece of it as relic her, as our church is named Holy Cross Church and we will have a veneration right after the Mass.

 

Today’s feast of the exaltation or triumph of the Holy Cross is not like Good Friday. The words ‘triumph’ and ‘cross’ don’t normally belong together. ‘Triumph’ suggests celebration, achievement, recognition. ‘Cross’ indicates suffering, humiliation, defeat. How could anyone who ended up crucified ever be said to have triumphed. It is hard to think of a greater paradox than the phrase ‘the triumph of the cross’. Far from being a triumph, death by crucifixion was considered to be the most degrading and terrifying form of execution. It was a way for the Roman authorities to show its triumph over all those who dared to threaten Roman order and peace.

Yet, as Christians, we have no difficulty in looking upon the cross of Jesus as a triumph. Rome did not have the last word when it came to Jesus, because God raised Jesus from the dead and he made him the cornerstone of a new community, which went on to include a future Roman Emperor, Constantine. It was firstly the triumph of love over hatred, the triumph of God’s love over human sin. All authentic love is life-giving and God’s love is supremely life-giving. In the light of the resurrection, the crucifixion of Jesus was understood as the triumph of God’s goodness over the powers of evil, the triumph of light over the power of darkness, the triumph of love over hatred and sin.

The cross was invented by the Persians and then adopted by the Romans as one of the cruelest and most frightening instruments of torture and execution to instill fear among subjects. Constantine used it as a talisman of power in the civil war with his brother. Some people treat the cross as a trinket. For them the cross is merely a piece of jewelry. Other people treat the cross in a superstitious manner. They give a cross powers that belong to God. These people have seen too many cheap horror movies and act as though a cross can defeat evil spirits. It is not the object that conquers evil, it is the power of Christ whose presence the object reminds us that conquers evil.

The deeper meaning of the Cross is presented in today's second reading from the Letter of Paul to the Philippians. Jesus emptied himself completely, not just becoming a human being but accepting the worst public death of the society he was in to demonstrate the extent of the love of God for us. He died making a willing statement of love, filling the world with the love he had for his Father and his Father has for him. As today’s gospel reminds us, “for God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved”. The Cross possesses the power to forgive sins, the power to heal consciences and human hearts.

When we celebrate this feast, particularly of our parish feast, let’s meditate on the significance of the Cross in our life.  

1) We should honor and venerate the cross and carry it on our person to remind ourselves of the love God has for us and the price Jesus paid for our salvation.

2) The cross will give us strength in our sufferings and remind us of our hope of eternal glory with the risen Lord. With St. Paul, we express our belief that the “message of the cross is foolishness only to those who are perishing” (1Cor 1:18-24), and that we should “glory in the cross of Our Lord” (Gal 6:14).

3) We should bless ourselves with the sign of the cross to remind ourselves that we belong to Christ Jesus, to honor the Most Holy Trinity, and to ask the Triune God to bless us, save us and protect us from all danger and evil.

4) The crucifix should remind us that we are forgiven sinners and, hence, we are expected to forgive those who offend us and to ask for forgiveness whenever we offend others or hurt their feelings.

Today we are invited to look upon the cross as the 'explosion of God’s life-giving love for us all' and then to allow ourselves to be drawn into that love so that we can reflect it to others through our lives.

 

 OT XXIII: Wis 9:13-18b; Phlm 9-10, 12-17; Lk 14:25–33  

Many of us may have had the experience of starting into something and not being able to see it through. This can happen for many reasons. If a project turns out to be more expensive than was planned for, and people don’t really have the money to finish it. Or if a task we began took much longer than we had expected, and found it hard to sustain the interest to keep at it to the end. Or we can begin a project with enthusiasm, but our health takes a turn for the worse and, as a result, we just do not have the energy to complete it.

The two parables that Jesus speaks in today’s gospel reading have to do with people starting a project and not being able to finish it. In the case of both the builder and the king in those parables, the basic problem was a failure to think through what they were entering into. The builder did not calculate his costs correctly, and the king underestimated the strength of his enemy. Jesus speaks those two parables in the context of highlighting the demanding nature of being his disciple. At this point in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where crucifixion and death await him, so he does not mince his words about what following him really means. Hence, the two parables call on people to think it through carefully before committing themselves to becoming his disciples. Jesus is saying that this is not a decision you can make casually; you need to be aware of what you are letting yourself in for.

 

 Indeed, it could be said that many of us never really had to think through becoming a follower of the Lord; we were born into it, as it were. We were certainly baptized into it at an early age; it came natural to us, to some extent. It was a gift that came our way from our parents and we have been grateful for that gift ever since.

 

Being a Christian, being a Catholic, always requires a certain amount of thinking things through and figuring out what is to be done. For example, various options will come our way in life; some of them will be compatible with the Lord’s way, others may not be. We will often find ourselves asking, ‘Can I do this and be faithful to the gospel?’ At other times, some demand may be made of us and our natural instinct might be to shirk it. Rather than going with our natural instinct, thinking it through may bring home to us that the Lord’s call is present in this demand.

This is the situation that we find unfolding in the second reading. Paul writes a short letter to Philemon from his prison cell. Philemon was a reasonably wealthy person whom Paul had baptised. He had a house large enough to provide a space for the local church to gather, and, so was a leader of his church. As a person of wealth, he had slaves. One of them, Onesimus, ran away and made his way to Paul. While he was in prison Paul brought him to faith in the Lord. Paul refers to himself as Onesimus’ spiritual father. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter. Slaves had no rights and Philemon could have had Onesimus put to death for running away. However, Paul called on Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as a brother in the Lord. Having both been baptized into Christ by Paul, they were now spiritual brothers with one heavenly Father. Paul was asking Philemon to do something very difficult. To receive his runaway slave back as a brother, as an equal, meant that Philemon would be going against what his social peers would have expected of him, and probably members of his blood family as well. Yet, Paul was saying to him, ‘If you are to be faithful to your baptismal calling, you have to do what I am asking, even if it is going to cost you a lot, in terms of your standing in society and in your family’.

 

Philemon’s dilemma can be that of any one of us. We find ourselves having to work out for ourselves, ‘What is the right thing for me to do in this situation?’ Our decision will depend on how much we have given ourselves over to Christ.

Jesus says ‘If anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple’. In the language that Jesus spoke if you wanted to say that you preferred one thing to another, you said you loved the one and hated the other. Jesus is really saying that we are to prefer him to everyone else, to love him with a greater love than we love even our own family members. Soren Kierkegaard said that there are a lot of parade-ground Christians who wear the uniforms of Christianity, but few who are willing to do battle for Christ and his kingdom. When it comes to doing battle for the Lord, too many church members are just sitting on the sidelines instead of “standing on the promises of God.” Jesus does not want a large number of “half-way” disciples who are willing to do a “little bit” of prayer, a “little bit” of commitment, a “little bit” of dedication, a “little bit” of love. Jesus wants disciples who are truly committed to prayer, to discipleship and to being ruled by him as their king. 

 

Jesus’ challenge of true Christian discipleship can be accepted only if we practice the spirit of detachment and renunciation in our daily lives.  Real discipleship demands true commitment to the duties entrusted to us by life, circumstances, the community, or directly by God Himself, and by loving acts of selfless, humble, sacrificial love offered to all God’s children around us.  Let us remember that all this is possible only if we rely on the power of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.