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Before opening the Bible to read, perhaps you, like me, find it helpful to turn on a light to see what you are reading. This is especially true since I wear trifocals. Yet, more than glasses and light, I realize that my soul needs the illumination of the Holy Spirit to understand what I read in sacred Scripture.
So, I invite the Holy Spirit to come and light up my interior to better welcome the word of God. In the Gospel for Sept. 18, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus uses the example of the untrustworthy steward who sits down quickly to settle accounts. Why I wondered, did my eyes settle upon the word “quickly” in the parable Jesus was telling? Lingering in prayer upon that word, I wondered if any doors would swing open.
My heart opened to that memory of concelebrating Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. On pilgrimage with the Visitation Sisters, we had arrived just moments before Mass was to begin. Walking by the sacristy, the sacristan surprised me with the question, “Priest?” I said, “Yes.” Pointing inside he said, “Hurry.”
So “quickly” I vested and followed the procession to the altar. It was a joy to see the cathedral filled, standing room only, with people present from all around the world. Still wondering why the Holy Spirit might lead me to reflect upon that moment, there was this inspiration when I reflected, without hurry, upon the distribution of holy Communion.
Was I witnessing Jesus Christ settling “quickly” the debts that each one owed, as in the Gospel for today? Certainly. In the Mass, we encounter the risen Lord who by his life, death and resurrection has conquered death and given us the unmerited gift of his life in the Spirit.
What debt is greater than this life that God is giving us? Who but Jesus Christ is qualified to give us life and so pay the ransom that sets us free from death? As St. Paul writes to Timothy in the second reading (1 Tm 2:1-8), “Beloved: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be offered for everyone … This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all. … It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.”
As I experienced in the cathedral that day in Paris, when the altar bells rang, it was “good and pleasing to God” that the eyes of the entire world were on Jesus, lifted above the altar in the consecrated Host. Held up in the “holy hands” of the priest, I cherished the hope that one day, everyone would want to be with us in that place of worship and adoration, “without anger or argument.”
St. Benedict, too, gives encouragement to this hope of ours when he writes in his Rule, “So we should at long last rouse ourselves, prompted by the words of Scripture: Now is the time for us to rise from sleep. Our eyes should be open to the God-given light, and we should listen in wonderment to the message of the divine voice as it daily cries out: Today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts; and again: If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. And what does the Spirit say? Come my sons, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Hurry, while you have the light of life, so that death’s darkness may not overtake you.”
What may we learn from the untrustworthy steward?
Quickly choose life. Hurry while there is yet time. Settle your account with God and accept the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist.
As Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and (money).”
Father Perkl is pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church, in Burnsville. He can be reached at [email protected].
Sunday, Sept. 18
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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