Grace Managers

November 16: Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A:

Proverbs 31:10-13,19-20,30-31; Psalm 128:1-5; 1Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

Thoughts to help us take responsibility as stewards of the kingship of Christ.

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life ... Step Five )

Grace Managers

“Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

If a wife tried her heart out to be the “efficient woman” Proverbs describes, but simply couldn’t, wouldn’t her husband love her all the more, just for trying? Wouldn’t he do everything he could to convince her that her value was in herself, not in “the fruit of her hands” (Proverbs 31:31; Psalm 128:3)?

Jesus chose us “to go and bear fruit.” How? Simply by living and acting in union with him: “Whoever remains in me bears much fruit” (Alleluia verse, John 15:5, 16).

Jesus himself failed as the Messiah people expected; he died without changing anything in Jewish society. He couldn’t convert his own people, and his handpicked disciples deserted him (see Luke 4:28; Matthew 11:23; 23:37; 26:56). But the Father loved him for being what he was. And for living out his heart.

As Christ’s body, “children of light,” we don’t “sleep as the rest do,” dreaming of impressive accomplishments, but “stay alert” to what is already within us. We put on “the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” If we cultivate faith, hope and love in our hearts, and live by these in action, Jesus says to us, “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy.”

First and foremost, we are “managers of the gift of divine life” (see 1Peter 4:10), giving it by living it.

 PRAY: “Lord, keep me awake!”

PRACTICE: Look in before out.