This article has amazing insight. I too, couldn’t make sense of it as I was stuck in the money aspect. In light of the other article you published on persecution, the diligence on cultivating virtue makes this more poignant.
Excellent, most helpful and thought provoking! Even those things that seem bad or unhelpful can be a gift to be used for others, for ourselves and to glorify God. St. Paul tells us in a couple of places to praise and thank God even for that which seems awful because it can be a gift from God in disguise!
Thank you for your insight into this Gospel reading…I have always struggled interpreting it into my life…between St Thomas and you I have a handle on what JESUS is teaching me.
From this perspective, I am not the one who buried his talent. In today's culture Fear is the state of mind most want you to have. It is the underlying current when you purchase anything, seek a flawless mate and/or develop your talent through smoky eyes acquire with medication, illegal drugs, alcohol or some other sinful action. Fear is used to motivate people. Some can overcome this fear, two did in the passage. The remaining one was overcome with the fear of the evil one and probably no help or advice from the other two. Sadly many will be the final one. No one wants their comfort zone disturbed. It is too much work because their mental energy is so low addressing anything else is an issue. I myself have develop my talents. Now I have buried them to rest in the Lord and wait for my true love to show up and communicate with me.
Thank you so much for your reflection. This has always been a difficult one for me because I seen myself as the final one.
St. Thomas Aquinas has a way of helping us to see clearly what has previously been unclear or worrisome. I’m so glad that this reflection touched you. May God bless you.
Perhaps you believe both yourself and those many who will be the final one in error? These are three servants with different abilities yet all three are addressed directly by the master.
Yes. The master calls us all, even as He did Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as a bold example. Did she have one, two or five talents given to her? Can we say with certainty which servant she was? Perhaps she was given only one talent but did all she did anyway?
She has spoken of the dark night of the soul as she did not “hear” the Lord for many years as once she knew Him. She never feared that she was abandoned by Him in this darkness but grew more “talented.”
Many rather than knowing Him have never heard Him, intimately, as have the three servants. So is it not being present to others and in your knowledge of His love, that is in your receiving the grace to hear His call in your life, that your make “interest” on your talents? Fear of God is there but there is no other fear in such a call. Be a prayer warrior and free others to better hear His call in your gift of prayer to them.
And here is a bonus, a second talent perhaps? If you do this, spend time in prayer for others, He will place others in your path to both give you strengthening, for men it is called iron sharpening iron, and to whom you are that hope that opens their ears to know that talent He has given to them.
Put it in practice, even for just six weeks. Both enough time to form a habit and, more importantly, to have had the time to reflect deeply on who those people He has directed to your path have been.
This article has amazing insight. I too, couldn’t make sense of it as I was stuck in the money aspect. In light of the other article you published on persecution, the diligence on cultivating virtue makes this more poignant.
Excellent, most helpful and thought provoking! Even those things that seem bad or unhelpful can be a gift to be used for others, for ourselves and to glorify God. St. Paul tells us in a couple of places to praise and thank God even for that which seems awful because it can be a gift from God in disguise!
Thank you for your insight into this Gospel reading…I have always struggled interpreting it into my life…between St Thomas and you I have a handle on what JESUS is teaching me.
From this perspective, I am not the one who buried his talent. In today's culture Fear is the state of mind most want you to have. It is the underlying current when you purchase anything, seek a flawless mate and/or develop your talent through smoky eyes acquire with medication, illegal drugs, alcohol or some other sinful action. Fear is used to motivate people. Some can overcome this fear, two did in the passage. The remaining one was overcome with the fear of the evil one and probably no help or advice from the other two. Sadly many will be the final one. No one wants their comfort zone disturbed. It is too much work because their mental energy is so low addressing anything else is an issue. I myself have develop my talents. Now I have buried them to rest in the Lord and wait for my true love to show up and communicate with me.
Thank you so much for your reflection. This has always been a difficult one for me because I seen myself as the final one.
St. Thomas Aquinas has a way of helping us to see clearly what has previously been unclear or worrisome. I’m so glad that this reflection touched you. May God bless you.
Perhaps you believe both yourself and those many who will be the final one in error? These are three servants with different abilities yet all three are addressed directly by the master.
Yes. The master calls us all, even as He did Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as a bold example. Did she have one, two or five talents given to her? Can we say with certainty which servant she was? Perhaps she was given only one talent but did all she did anyway?
She has spoken of the dark night of the soul as she did not “hear” the Lord for many years as once she knew Him. She never feared that she was abandoned by Him in this darkness but grew more “talented.”
Many rather than knowing Him have never heard Him, intimately, as have the three servants. So is it not being present to others and in your knowledge of His love, that is in your receiving the grace to hear His call in your life, that your make “interest” on your talents? Fear of God is there but there is no other fear in such a call. Be a prayer warrior and free others to better hear His call in your gift of prayer to them.
And here is a bonus, a second talent perhaps? If you do this, spend time in prayer for others, He will place others in your path to both give you strengthening, for men it is called iron sharpening iron, and to whom you are that hope that opens their ears to know that talent He has given to them.
Put it in practice, even for just six weeks. Both enough time to form a habit and, more importantly, to have had the time to reflect deeply on who those people He has directed to your path have been.