St. Mary's Catholic Church of Tomahawk, WI

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

We are in the thirty third ordinary Sunday, year A. The first reading presents a praiseworthy and trustworthy wife who represents the Church and individual Christians whose head and groom is Christ. The basic traits like trust, honesty, goodness, generosity, and sound relationship are fundamental and defining traits in the Church and individuals. How do we try to grow in building a true relationship with Christ and His Church?

The second reading highlights how Christians enjoy certain knowledge about the end times. Some of the specific defining features of the day of the Lord are suddenness, calamity and inescapability, with an emphasis of tumult at the final revelation of Christ. As believers and children of light we must be prepared and approach those days with faith, confidence and hope because of the promise of a joyous reunion with Christ our Lord.

The gospel presents us the parable of the talents exploring God’s kingdom in light of ancient economic realities. Ancient masters and slaves were profoundly unequal. Masters held most of the rights and privileges while slaves had few rights and little recourse when wronged, which means poverty defined slaves’ lives. To transfer the story to the spiritual life, the

master-slave inequality reflects the divine-human divide, and the talents represent unearned gifts that have corresponding responsibilities. The question is how best do we develop and use our gifts for greater good?

Fr. Aloysius Royan Anthony