Reflection: Watch. Keep awake. The End of the Liturgical Year; the End of Life and of the World. Prepared to render an account.
The Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30). You have been faithful in small things; come and join in your master’s happiness. The parable of the talents, read in today’s Gospel, can be easily understood, and its message is clear: we should make good use of the gifts which the Lord, God, has given us, and be aware that we will have to render an account of their use to the Lord in due time. Fundamentally, a talent was a weight of 80 pounds, or 36 kilograms. We are then not surprised to see how in the parable one of the persons involved dug a hole in the ground and hid the single talent. A talent had also money value, and in this context it is reckoned to be equal to six thousand (6000) denarii, a single denarius being the ordinary daily wage of a workman. This would mean that a single talent would be equal to twenty years (some would say more that fifteen years) wages for an ordinary workman. The word talent is also used in the sense of gift, natural endowment. The message of the parable, as has been noted, is that people should use the gifts, the talents, whether great or small, which the Lord has given them. Although five talents, or even two, was a large amount, in his reply to those who used them with profit, the Lord calls them “small things”, and they are invited to join in the master’s happiness – which in the Christian context of the parable would mean eternal bliss.
As a parable in itself, this one could fit into any part of the Gospels. However, in its present context it forms part of Jesus’ final discourse on the Last Things, which has as its central theme: Watch, stay awake, be prepared for the day and the hour. Immediately before this parable we have that on the Ten Bridesmaids, with the same theme, and immediately after it Christ’s discourse on the Final Judgment, the Judgement of the Nations. It is thus a suitable reading for this Sunday, at the end of the liturgical year.
Traditionally, at the end of the liturgical year and at the beginning of Advent the Church in the Sunday liturgy devoted its attention to the Last Things, and to the importance of being prepared to meet the Lord at the particular judgment that follows earthly death. No great attention is paid today to death and to the importance of dying in God’s grace, or even to Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians to live as children of the light, according to the teaching of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. And even if these truths are forgotten, death can come suddenly, as a thief in the night.
There is further material for reflection in today’s Gospel reading that everyone should use their God-given talents, whether great or small., to the best of their ability for their own good, that of their neighbour and of the entire community.
Martin McNamara MSC