Fr Kevin Kilgore

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Gospel: Matthew 25: 14-30

Jesus told his disciples this parable:
“A man going on a journey
called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.
To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one–
to each according to his ability.
Then he went away.
Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them,
and made another five.
Likewise, the one who received two made another two.
But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground
and buried his master’s money.

“After a long time
the master of those servants came back
and settled accounts with them.
The one who had received five talents came forward
bringing the additional five.
He said, ‘Master, you gave me five talents.
See, I have made five more.’
His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.
Since you were faithful in small matters,
I will give you great responsibilities.
Come, share your master’s joy.’
Then the one who had received two talents also came forward and said,
‘Master, you gave me two talents.
See, I have made two more.’
His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.
Since you were faithful in small matters,
I will give you great responsibilities.
Come, share your master’s joy.’
Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said,
‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person,
harvesting where you did not plant
and gathering where you did not scatter;
so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground.
Here it is back.’
His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked, lazy servant!
So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant
and gather where I did not scatter?
Should you not then have put my money in the bank
so that I could have got it back with interest on my return?
Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten.
For to everyone who has,
more will be given and he will grow rich;
but from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.
And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.'”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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I received a message on Facebook recently from a parishioner who’s gone off to college.

Hi Father Kevin, her message began, as you know, Christmas is coming up, and this year I want to do something extra special for my mom!

I thought it would be so meaningful to gather letters and notes from the people closest to her so that she can see how loved, important, and appreciated she is. I was wondering if you’d be willing to write her a letter sharing things you appreciate about her.

Also, can you please pass this on to anyone else who may know her? I want to give her something extra special to open this Christmas. Thank you!

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How many parents would love to receive such a thoughtful, affirming gift?

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College students are often on a budget. How much do you think this gift will actually cost her? Perhaps fifteen or twenty dollars for a photo album, and a few more for wrapping paper and a bow.

But how much is this gift worth in terms of meaning?

It’s priceless. You cannot put a value on the love, the effort, and the weeks this young person will spend putting this gift together. Nor can you put a price on the affirmation this mother will receive from her family, friends, and community.

Using today’s Gospel imagery, this gift might cost the equivalent of one “talent” to make, but the return on the investment is immeasurable. This daughter is like those servants who doubled their master’s fortune.

This is ultimately Jesus’ point. It does not matter how much time, treasure, or talent we have; what matters is how we use it. 

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Consider another example. There’s the “worthy wife” from our first reading.

The author of the Book of Proverbs could’ve chosen anyone – anyone – to be his example of a person pleasing to God, including a holy priest, a bold prophet, a mighty warrior, or a powerful king.

But he chooses a “worthy wife,” whose value is far beyond pearls. 

“She brings her husband good, not evil. She reaches out her hands to the poor… Her children rise and praise her… Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting, but the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised,” he writes.

Although in the ancient world, a woman’s influence rarely reached beyond her home, the worthy wife made the most of what she was given and became the salt that preserved her family, as is often the case today.

Like that college student making an album of letters for Christmas, she took her single “talent” and stretched it, multiplying her fortune.

You cannot put a price on preserving virtue, or building up your family gesture by gesture. In doing the small things with great love, the worthy wife became the example of a praiseworthy person in the scriptures.

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Although we only heard a few verses of the entire poem in our first reading, it is actually twenty-two verses long. Each verse begins with the next letters of the Hebrew alphabet. 

In English, that’d be like writing a poem about a wife or mother using each letter from A to Z. “A” is for amazing. “B” is for bold. And so on. Thus, the author intends for this poem to be exhaustive; comprehensive; complete. 

But he boils her essence down to a single word, “valiant.”

In Hebrew, the verb “valiant” can also be translated as, “force; valor; nobility.” It’s the same verb used to describe a military unit in combat.

They are victorious.

And so is she.

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What might all of this say to us?

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God has given each of us a certain amount of responsibility in this world – as a spouse, a parent, a child, a priest, or a servant in some form. Some of us have only been given a single talent, while others may have been given two or even five.

What matters is not how much we have, but what we do with it.

On a personal note, this weekend I celebrate my 6^th anniversary as pastor of this parish. I arrived on November 15, 2020, in the middle of COVID, unsure of what the future held. 

Our nation and our parish had been virtually shut down for months.

But over the last 2,000 days, we’ve reawakened and transformed our beloved community of faith into what it is today – vibrant, active, generous, welcoming, and overflowing with love.

It’s palpable.

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Like letters lovingly placed into an album for Christmas, each of us has contributed to our parish story; we’ve all taken the “talents” God has given us and done something beautiful with them.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. 

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Image credits: (1) Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church (2) Globalnews.ca (3) Skip Prichard

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Gospel: Luke 17:26-37

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be in the days of the Son of Man;
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage up to the day
that Noah entered the ark,
and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot:
they were eating, drinking, buying,
selling, planting, building;
on the day when Lot left Sodom,
fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.
So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
On that day, someone who is on the housetop
and whose belongings are in the house
must not go down to get them,
and likewise one in the field
must not return to what was left behind.
Remember the wife of Lot.
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it,
but whoever loses it will save it.
I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed;
one will be taken, the other left.
And there will be two women grinding meal together;
one will be taken, the other left.” 
They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?”
He said to them, “Where the body is,
there also the vultures will gather.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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When she was just a child, Saint Frances Cabrini often visited her uncle, who was a priest. Behind his home, there was a canal where she’d make paper boats, place flower petals in them, which she called “missionaries,” and send them downstream.

As the boats disappeared, Frances imagined that they reached the shores of China and India, where she dreamt of being a missionary someday.

On one occasion, Frances leaned too far forward and fell into the canal nearly drowning. She was found on a riverbank downstream and attributed her survival to divine intervention.

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Although she survived, this near-death experience left Frances with an intense fear of water. Still, that was not enough to dampen her dream of serving God overseas.

As Providence would have it, Frances did realize her dream, but she not where she had imagined as a child. After meeting with the pope, she was told the real need was for her to minister to Italian immigrants in America.

Obediently, she went.

Imagine the fear she must’ve faced when she first saw the Atlantic Ocean. It was a million times larger than the canal she fell into as a child! Incredibly, she made that perilous journey across the Atlantic not once, not twice…but twenty-three times.

Often enough, she did so in frail health with nausea and shivers down her spine.

Reflecting on her travels, Frances wrote, “I do not ask God to take my fear away. Rather, to expand my heart. If I love more than I fear, then I shall overcome.”

And overcome she did. 

Frances not only conquered the open seas, she also did so in order to live with the poor of the earth, serving abandoned children, turning them from orphans into beloved children of God.

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She reminds us that, no matter how great or deep our fear may be, there is One who walks on water. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus says, “I have overcome the world.”

And with him, so shall we.

Saint Frances Cabrini, pray for us.

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Image credits: (1) Faith Spilling Over (2) Britannica (3) Walking on Water, Ivan Aivazovsky 1888

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Gospel: Luke 17:20-25

Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come,
Jesus said in reply,
“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’
For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

Then he said to his disciples,
“The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.
For just as lightning flashes
and lights up the sky from one side to the other,
so will the Son of Man be in his day.
But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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In his novel, War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy wrestles with the stinging irony uniting love and war. Both test and transform the human spirit. Both cause people to search for meaning amidst the internal chaos of a ballroom or the overt chaos of the battlefield.

His story unfolds in 19^th century Russia while Napoleon conquers large swaths of Europe.

“War began,” he writes, “that is, an event took place contrary to human reason and to the whole of human nature. Millions of people committed against each other a countless number of deceptions, betrayals, thefts, robberies, arsons, and murders.”

Tolstoy laments the awful truth that these atrocities were often committed by one Christian against another.

A truth that has repeated itself throughout history.

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Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Josaphat, a bishop and martyr, born in 16^th century Poland – a land which Napoleon himself would later divide and conquer. 

Born to Eastern Orthodox parents, Josaphat not only found his calling as a priest, but he also spent his life striving for Christian unity. To this day, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church are divided, a schism dating back to the year 1054.

Although there are cultural, historical, linguistic, and even theological differences between the East and the West, Josaphat couldn’t fathom how Christians could remain divided; rather, he sought to answer Christ’s prayer, “That they may be one, Father, as we are one.”

This call for unity is ultimately what cost him his life. In 1623, a mob of Eastern Orthodox Christians attacked him, beat him to death, then threw his body into a river. Amazingly, it was later recovered and buried in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

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Both Tolstoy and Saint Josaphat remind us that division is not something that only happens “out there,” in the cold and darkness of the world. Rather, we are all responsible for it.

As another Russian novelist put it, “If it were only so easy, but the dividing line between good and evil cuts through every human heart.”

When we survey the political landscape of our nation, or the religious landscape of our Church, in what ways do Christians still fight amongst themselves? And what would unity look like, instead?

May Saint Josaphat pray for us, that we would seek to live like him – an agent of Christ’s peace.

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Image credits: (1) CBR (2) Catholic World Report (3) Paulist Fathers