Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Tư Tuần 29 Thường Niên

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Tư Tuần 29 Thường Niên

Trong bài Dụ ngôn hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu cho chúng ta thấy một thí dụ về người đầy tớ trung thành, biết lo việc nhà và biết trông chờ và sẵn sàng mở cửa cho người chủ trở về không biết lúc nào. dụ ngôn này, Chúa Giêsu đã nhấn mạnh cho chúng ta biết sự cần thiết về đức tin và sự kỳ vọng thận trọng của chúng ta. Chúng ta biết chắc chắn rằng Thiên Chúa sẽ đến, nhưng chúng ta không biết ngày nào hay giờ nào. Như người đầy tớ khôn ngoan chúng ta phải biết sẵn sàng, tỉnh thức và chờ đợi cho đến khi Chúa đến. Đó mới là người xứng đáng lãnh được phần thưởng nơi Thiên Chúa.

Thánh Basil đã viết: "Những gì là dấu hiệu của một Kitô hữu? Phải chú ý từng ngày, từng giờ và biết sẵn sàng trong trạng thái chuẩn bị trong sự hoàn hảo đó là phải biết làm đẹp lòng Thiên Chúa, và phải nhớ rằng Chúa sẽ đến trong bất cứ giờ phút nào.". Có lẽ ai trong chúng ta cũng đã phải trải qua một mất mát bất ngờ của một người bạn hoặc người thân, mà trong số họ là những người còn qua trẻ. Có bao giờ chúng ta đã trở nên quá gắn liền cuộc sống của chúng ta với những thứ hay hư nát của thế gian này, mà chúng ta đã quên và không chuẩn bị sẵn sàng cho ngày mà Chúa đã trở lại với chúng ta trong ngày Sau hết.? Tinh thần và đạo đức của chúng ta phải là một tấm gương sang và trở thành một ví dụ thực sự tốt cho những người khác dưới sự chăm sóc và hướng dẫn của chúng ta. Đó là một trách nhiệm nghiêm trọng có giá trị cao cần phải được phản ánh.

    Xin Chúa giúp chúng con luôn biết sẵn sàng và sống đúng với vai trò và bổn phận của chúng con, để nhờ đó mà những người chung quanh có thể nhận biết Chúa qua những việc chúng con đã và đang làm..

REFLECTION

There are two lessons in the Gospel reading today: preparedness for Jesus' coming, and responsibility to develop and make use of gifts given to us by God. The parable of the servants waiting for the master's return emphasizes the need for faith and vigilant expectation on our part. We know for sure that God is coming, but we do not know the hour. The wise servant is he who is ready and waiting for the master's arrival. It is he who deserves reward from the master. St. Basil writes: "What is the mark of a Christian? To watch daily and hourly and stand prepared in that state of perfection which is pleasing to God, knowing that at what hour he thinks not, the Lord will come." Perhaps some of us must have experienced an unexpected loss of a friend or relative, some of them still in the youthful years of life. Have we become too attached to things of this world, that we have forgotten to be ready, at all times, for God's coming?

    The other message tells us of our responsibility and accountability to God for the gifts and talents he has bestowed on each of us. Greater responsibility entails greater accountability. When a person is placed in a position that allows him to guide, care, and influence others, much more is required of his moral, spiritual and ethical life so that he becomes a truly good example to those under his care. It is a responsibility worth serious reflection.

    "Lord, you are faithful even when I fail. Help me to remain ever faithful to you and to not shrink back when I encounter difficulties. Make me diligent in the exercise of my responsibilities and wise and prudent in the use of my gifts, time and resources.

Wednesday 29th Week in Ordinary Time

Opening Prayer: Thank you for the gift of this new day. Thank you for the gift of faith, which allows me to seek to live this day meaningfully. You know that I come into your presence filled with a desire to praise you and to receive the grace I need to glorify you by my life. Enlighten me, Lord, and strengthen me.

Encountering Christ:

· Unexpected Arrival: Jesus makes clear that although we know that he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, we do not know when he will come. And so, we must always be ready: You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. Jesus invites us to a daily lifestyle marked by a keen awareness of life’s brevity and eternal trajectory. Either the second coming or our own death is always close by. This theme appears throughout the Bible, especially in the wisdom literature: As for man, his days are like the grass; he blossoms like a flower in the field. A wind sweeps over it and it is gone; its place knows it no more (Psalms 103:15-16). Is that how we live? Do we see ourselves, our work, our decisions, and our relationships from this perspective? A common exercise for a spiritual retreat is to sit down and write one’s own eulogy, what we would want to be said about how we lived when our earthly journey is complete. Taking time to reflect on our lives from this perspective can help us gain clarity and focus, enabling us to live each day more truly and more fully.

· Eternal Repercussions: Jesus explains that our experience at the end of history–either our own personal history or the history of the world as a whole–will be directly affected by how we choose to live in history. If we live responsibly, loving God and neighbor by seeking and embracing God’s will day by day until the end, we will be blessed. But if we block out the eternal perspective and live only for self-indulgence and self-glorification, we will suffer for it. And the suffering will be in proportion to the level of awareness we had of our true responsibilities. Some commentators see in this passage an allusion to purgatory, since Jesus points out that those who are grossly irresponsible in this life–the ones who act irresponsibly even though they are fully aware of what God was asking of them–will be beaten severely, while those who acted similarly with less awareness will be beaten only lightly. There are degrees of suffering as well as degrees of glory on the other side. Jesus wants us to know this. Theologians can’t explain completely how exactly this works, but we can’t ignore Christ’s clear revelation that our choices here on earth will have eternal consequences. How much does this awareness affect my daily life? How much would Christ like it to affect my daily life? How would my daily life look different if I lived with a greater awareness of this truth?

· Great Expectations: When Jesus summarizes his parable by saying, Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more, how do I react? An unhealthy reaction would be to think that I need to earn God’s love by putting on a good performance. Jesus doesn’t say that God’s love for us depends on our behavior. In fact, his love for us is complete and overflowing regardless of our “performance.” The mere fact of our existence is proof of this—if God didn’t love us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), he wouldn’t have created us in the first place. Another unhealthy reaction would be to turn away from God because he is too demanding, too authoritarian. Jesus is not being unreasonably demanding with us simply by encouraging us to live responsibly. In fact, being faithful and prudent stewards of the great gift of life, and all that goes with it, is merely the path to joy and fulfillment. Squandering our gifts may promise some immediate pleasures, but we are not made for those; we are made for lasting relationships and meaningful activity. And so, a healthy reaction to Jesus’s apparently stark answer to St. Peter’s question would be joyful relief. Jesus has designed the universe in such a way that the deepest longings of our hearts can actually be fulfilled, through living in friendship with him. This is a far cry from the emptiness and angst brought to us by the postmodern view of human life as a meaningless and hopeless blip on the universe’s epiphenomenal radar screen.

Conversing with Christ: Thank you, Lord, for giving me work to do for you in your Kingdom. Thank you for entrusting me with so much—with my life and talents, with the sacraments and faith itself, with the people around me and connected to me. I want to be a faithful and prudent steward of all your gifts. I want to live on the wavelength of glad gratitude, joyfully fulfilling my duties with the knowledge that in doing so I get to exercise my love for you and comfort your Sacred Heart.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will have a conversation with my spiritual director, or a trusted mentor of some sort, about how I use my time, and how I could use it more responsibly, for God’s glory and the advance of his Kingdom in my heart and in the hearts of those around me.

Wed 24th Oct 2018 29th Week in Ordinary Time (B)

To find an example of the faithful steward of the Gospel we have only to look at the first reading. Paul refers to himself as the steward of God's mysteries. He was entrusted with the task of revealing for the first time that the Gentiles were also to enjoy the privilege of knowing Christ and being members of his body. Such a privilege would make an enormous difference to their lives.

Again and again it emerges in the Acts of the Apostles and his letters how the love of Christ urged Paul on through many dangers and difficulties. He spared no effort to bring Christ to the many and the many to Christ. For lesser human beings the energy and conviction of Paul are almost overwhelming. We need not, however, be discouraged. Stewardship can be exercised by all of us in different ways in accordance with our differing temperaments.

For more than ten years I have been attending catechumens' classes in a student hostel attached to a university. The classes are run by young men and women, some of whom have been themselves recently baptized. Many of these latter-day Paul have taken demanding courses run by the diocese. I am a mute spectator, deeply moved by the simplicity and honesty of the participants. Lord, lead us to be good stewards in your vineyard.