The Catholic Calendar for Wednesday, November 17, 2004
The Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, religious

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Revelation 4:1-11
Psalm 150:1-6
Luke 19:11-28

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"Engage in trade with these until I return." (Luke 19:13)

In Luke, chapter 19, Jesus tells those mistakenly believing that the kingdom of God would appear immediately upon their arrival in Jerusalem, that He must first depart to a distant country to receive His Kingship. He is here alluding to a series of events that must take place before He establishes His kingdom of peace -- His death, resurrection, ascension into heaven and His second coming at the end time. During His absence, however, He assigns an important task to His servants. Giving each a portion of His treasure, He bids them to put it to good use to earn Him a return.

The word "servant" refers to all who profess being Christian, committed to following Jesus, and who will share with others the treasure of God's truth and love He has entrusted to them, that they may draw others into His - God's - kingdom. They are to invest this treasure not only by "word" but more effectively by "deed," through the practice of Christ-like virtues in their relationships with others. Such is the primary task of those professing faith in Jesus.

Jesus describes the grim consequence to those who fail making a sincere effort to help win souls to Christ's kingdom by making Him seen and known through their own flesh to others. No one will be attracted to living in a kingdom peopled by loveless hypocrites. Truly, there is no greater destitution than that suffered by humans who have willfully impoverished their souls by breaking their spiritual connection with God through calculated disobedience to His love and truth revealed by Christ. The world's present condition offers ample evidence of this.

Merciful God,
through Your gifts of grace and wisdom,
help us to zealously work
to help attract citizens to Christ's Kingdom.
Amen.

- Marie Bocko, OCDS
(mlbocko at earthlink dot net)

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posted by joachim at 4:19 AM