Fr. Michael Williams

I recently saw an advert advertising pensions which stated: ‘There’s no time like the present to sort out your future’. The idea being that now is the time to prepare for retirement when it comes.

Today’s gospel is about preparing for our ultimate retirement into the eternal life. The advert for pensions could be applied to today’s parable: ‘There’s no time like the present to sort out your future’. Jesus tells us that we prepare for the eternal life by using the gifts we have been given by the Lord. As servants of the Lord we have received gifts “in proportion to our ability”. The Lord ‘has showered upon us all our gifts, abilities and talents’.

In some sense the different gifts we have belong to the Lord because He gave them to us. At the beginning of the gospel Jesus tells us that a man “summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them”. God has entrusted us with His property, because anything we have comes to us from God, whether it be our life, our faith, our family and friends, our talents, our goods. It all comes from God, which in a sense makes it His property.

The property or gifts that has been given to each one of us should used for the glory of God; the good of humanity; and the service of the Church. If we use what has been entrusted to us without fear we will receive the greatest of gifts- the eternal life of Heaven. But not to use what the Lord has given us through cowardice or fear will result in living in darkness. This is the life of “the wicked and lazy servant” who turns in on himself in his earthly life through laziness and fear. And the natural consequence of living unfaithfully in this life is to go and live in the outer darkness. Just as the natural consequence of living for the Lord results in living with God eternally in light. Living in the light means to confidently use the gifts entrusted to us.

As St Paul reminds us, we are children of light; “we do not belong to the night or to darkness”.

St Paul also speaks of the mysterious “Day of the Lord”, which is Day when Christ will return “and there will be nobody able to evade it”. This is the time when we will give an account of our lives to the Lord of History. It’s the time when we will say to the Lord, ‘This is what I’ve done with what you entrusted to me’. None of us knows the mysterious hour when the Lord will come calling. “The Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night…so we should not go on sleeping…but stay wide awake and sober”. If we are attentive to living our Christian Faith there is nothing to fear, in fact we should look forward to the “Day of the Lord” because it is the time to “come and join in your master’s happiness”.

‘There’s no time like the present to sort out your future’. Let us pray that we will use the gifts, abilities and talents that have been entrusted to us in the present time; so that when the Day of the Lord comes, our future happiness will be secured, and we ill hear the Lord say: “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have shown you can be faithful in small things…come and join in your Master’s happiness”.