'He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.' Sunday Reflections. 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Girl with a Pearl Earring, c.1665, Johannes Vermeer [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 16:1-13 [Short form 10-13] (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition)

Jesus said to the disciples, ["There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. And he called him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' And the steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' He said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.]

"He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." 

Antiphona ad Communionem / Communion Antiphon (John 10:14)

Ego sum pastor bonus, dicit Dóminus;

et cognósco oves meas, et cognóscunt me meae.

I am the Good shepherd, says the Lord;

I know my sheep, and mine know me.

Still-Life with Coffee Pot, Earthenware and Fruit

May 1888, Arles, Vincent van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Shortly before I came back to the Philippines from Ireland I dropped by the house of Brian, a childhood friend in Dublin. Over coffee we chatted about many things, ranging from the current situation of the Church in Ireland to the days when we were growing up.

In the course of our conversation the small Jewish community in Dublin came up. It has never quite reached 4,000 in Ireland and the majority of the now fewer than 2,000 live in Dublin. I told Brian that my father, who spent all his working life as a carpenter on building/construction sites, most of those years as a highly respected general foreman, had built a house for a wealthy Jewish couple in the late 1950s. 

Shortly after the house was finished a very expensive car stopped outside our house, in a street of terraced houses where nobody had a telephone and very few had cars. The few cars that were there were the kind that Pope Francis might have been interested in had he been around! The driver knocked on our door and turned out to be the owner of the new house my father had built. He came to invite our family to dinner the following week in his new home. My father had helped build many new homes over the 54 years of his working life but this was the only occasion when he had been thanked in such a way.

We enjoyed the gracious hospitality of the family and it was the only time I ever visited a Jewish home in Ireland.

Brian then told me a story about his father Jimmy, whom I had known well, a house painter and decorator. He had painted and decorated the houses of many Jewish families in Dublin over the years. This was mainly due to an incident the first time he was asked to work in a Jewish home. While scraping the old paint from the stairs he found a diamond ring stuck in a corner. He immediately brought it to the owner and said 'I found this on the stairs'. 'I know', said the owner, 'I put it there!' 

The word spread through the Jewish community that Jimmy was trustworthy. Over the years he had many Jewish clients. 

He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.

Jewish Museum, Walworth Road, Dublin

When I told the story of Jimmy and the diamond ring to my sister-in-law Gladys she told me that her engagement ring had been stolen while she and my brother Paddy were having renovations done to their home a few years ago.

I remember too how upset my father was when he was renovating a Georgian house in Dublin. He discovered that the knocker on the front door had disappeared and it could only have been one of his workmates who took it. He was unable to trace the knocker or find out who the thief was.

He who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.

Georgian doorways, Dublin

The current major story in the Philippines is the 'pork barrel scam'. PHP10 billion - roughly US$200,000,000 or €200,000,000 - of taxes paid by the people have disappeared. Some senators and members of Congress are alleged to be beneficiaries of this along with others.

Today's gospel speaks to situations like this. Corruption on such a vast scale begins in the classroom when a child learns that though cheating isn't right the main thing is not to be caught. The man who stole my sister-in-law's engagement ring and my father's workmate who walked away with the valuable knocker from the front door of the Georgian house were earning salaries. What values were they passing on to their families?

One thing that both my parents instilled in me was that I must not keep anything that isn't mine. When I was a toddler I came home from a park up the road from where we lived with a leather football. This was in the mid-1940s, around the time World War II ended when such things would have been very scarce and expensive. They asked around the neighbourhood and it was only when nobody claimed the ball that our family kept it.

Honesty and trustworthiness at such basic levels are  a foundation for justice. I've known of individuals 'working for justice' who weren't paying their own workers a proper wage. I've known many others such as my father, such as Jimmy, who didn't talk much about justice. They simply behaved in a just and honest manner and treated others with respect.

God invites every single one of us to share for ever in the riches of eternal life. Eternal life begins in the here and now. We make our choices in the here and now.

No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

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Engagement and wedding rings

I mentioned two diamond rings above. I couldn't find a painting with a diamond ring but Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring is a work of such extraordinary beauty that I used it instead.

I'm posting this a little early because I will be giving a directed retreat for eight days, the evening of 19 till the evening of 27 September, to six Missionaries of Charity in Tagaytay City, south of Manila. I know from being there before that it is difficult to connect with the internet.

I would be grateful for your prayers for the Sisters and myself.

Photos from Wikipedia.

'Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.' Sunday Reflections, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Irish Peace Tower, Belgium

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:28)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

     

Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 

Gospel Luke 14:25-33 (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition)

Now great multitudes accompanied Jesus; and he turned and said to them, "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. 

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

Responsorial Psalm (NAB Lectionary)

There probably are very few Irish mothers who at some stage have not said on many occasions to their children, 'I'll kill you if you do that again'. But I would also say that there have been very few Irish children who have ever taken that literally. When my mother threatened me with 'killing' I knew it to be a warning not to misbehave. If I heard her say 'I'll keelhaul you', I knew I was really out of line. I had no idea as a child what keelhauling was and I don't know if my mother knew what it was either. 

However, the message was loud and clear: 'Behave yourself!' My father's threat was 

a much milder 'I'll give you a good clip in the ear'. However, I survived childhood without ever receiving a 'good clip in the ear' - it was always 'a good clip' never just 'a clip'! - or being keelhauled, never mind being killed.

The word 'hate' as used by Jesus in today's gospel is in the same category as the threat of Irish mothers to 'kill' their children. But like the message that Irish mothers convey to their children to behave themselves, the meaning of Jesus is clear: 'You must be prepared to give up everything if necessary to be my disciple. A disciple is one who is prepared to learn a way of life from another.

A filling station in Brazil

Julie was a student of mine in college in Mindanao 40 years ago. She was the eldest in a family of six or seven children, as I recall. Her father Loloy was a casual labourer while her mother Minda worked for the family life apostolate in the parish. The parents earned just about to enough to feed their children and to send them to school. So when Julie graduated after a two-year course and got a job as a bookkeeper in a filling station the family were very happy to get the extra money.

However, Julie began to feel very uncomfortable with a request to keep two different books, with different records. She realized that her employer was cheating on taxes and expressed her concern to her parents. The three of them discussed the matter and saw clearly that what Julie was being asked to do was wrong, sinful, and so they advised her to resign, which she did. The loss of a job, the loss of a regular salary was a real sacrifice for the family. But they kept their integrity as disciples of Jesus. 

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. 

Antiphona ad communionem /Communion Antiphon Cf.Psalm 41 (42):2-3. Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum, Deum vivum. Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God; my soul is thirsting for God, the living God. Palestrina's setting is for Psalm 41 (42):2-4. This starts with the word 'Sicut' instead of 'Quemadmodum', used in Missale Romanum (2002). The English  text is from the Revised Grail Psalter, the version used for the Psalms in the new English translation of The Roman Missal. Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum:  ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.  Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum:  quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei?  Fuerunt mihi lacrimae meae panes die ac nocte,  dum dicitur mihi quotidie: Ubi est Deus tuus? Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the living God; when can I enter and appear before the face of God? My tears have become my bread, by day, by night,  as they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” Photos from Wikipedia.