Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thừ Sáu Tuần 31 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thừ Sáu Tuần 31 Thường Niên. Luke 16:1-8.  
Có một câu chuyện kể rằng, Ở làng nghèo xứ đó, có hai mẹ con sống với nhau  trong cảnh nghẻo túng, Khi người con trai lớn lên, anh đã yêu một người phụ nữ, nhưng người phụ nữ này không tha thiết với anh ta lắm.  Vì thế có một lúc anh ta đã nói với cô ta rằng: anh sẽ làm bất cứ điều gì cô ấy muốn nếu cô ấy đồng ý kết hôn với anh ta.  Cô ta nghe thế mới nói đùa với anh ta la: "Tôi sẽ chỉ đồng ý kết hôn với anh nếu anh móc trái tim của mẹ anh ra và mang đến cho tôi. Chỉ bằng cách này, anh mới có thể chứng minh được tình yêu của anh " Thế rồi tối hôm ấy, trong bóng tối của màn đêm anh chàng  trai này đã vào phòng của mẹ anh, lấy dao nhọn và  đâm vào long ngực mẹ mình, anh ta cắt trái tim của mẹ mình,  cầm trái tim rên tay với bàn tay vấy máu và chạy tới nhà của người phụ nữ anh yêu. Nhưng trong khi chạy với trái tim của mẹ anh trong tay, anh vấp ngã. Trái tim của mẹ anh đã nói với anh: "Hãy cẩn thận, con trai của mẹ."
            Người con trai si tình đã nghĩ sai khi tin rằng nếu anh ta có thể có được trái tim của mẹ mình, anh ta sẽ giành được chiến thắng và chiếm được trái tim của người phụ nữ anh yêu. "Hãy cẩn thận con trai của mẹ..." mẹ của anh dường như đã nhẹ nhàng nhắc nhở anh: rằng " Hãy cẩn thận con ơi, Tìm cho đúng nơi để đặt trái tim của con, con trai của mẹ. "
            Trong Tin Mừng hôm nay, ông chủ ca ngợi người quản lý không phải vì sự bất trung, xảo quyệt của người đầy tớ, nhưng vì sự thận trọng, biết tính toán tương lai của anh ta. Qua 2 câu chuyện, Chúa Giêsu đã dạy chúng ta ngày hôm nay là nếu chúng ta muốn trở nên con cái thực sự và đáng yêu của sự sáng, chúng ta cần phải đoán quyết, biết sáng tạo và khôn ngoan trong việc xử dụng thời gian và nỗ lực của chúng ta trong việc theo chân Chúa khi chúng ta thực hiện các hoạt động và sinh hoạt trần thế của chúng ta.
 
Friday 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Rom. 15:14-21;  Lk. 16:1-8
Once there lived a poor mother and her son. When he grew up, he fell in love with a woman who was not serious about him. He told her he would do anything she ask if only she would marry him. Half in jest, she told him: “I will only marry you if you cut out your mother’s heart and bring it to me. Only in this way can you prove your love.” In the darkness of the night he went into his mother’s room, took from his belt a knife and plunged it into her breast. He cut her heart and run with bloodstained hands towards the home of his loved one.        As he ran with the heart of his mother in his hands, he stumbled and fell. His mother’s heart said to him: “Be careful, my son.”  The son wrongly believed that if only he could get the heart of his mother he would win the heart of the woman he loved.  Be careful my son…” It was as though his mother was gently reminding him: “”be careful where you put your heart, my son.”
            In today’s gospel, the master praises the steward not for his dishonesty but for his prudence.
Jesus is teaching us today that if we are to be real and effective children of light we need to be decisive, creative and wise in spending our time and effort in following God’s as we carry out our worldly activities.
 
Friday 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 -Luke 16:1-8
opening Prayer: Dear Lord, I come before you asking to grow in faith, hope, and love. Grant me the grace to know and love you just a little more today. May I listen to your words attentively so that I can respond with deliberate obedience. Lord, I trust that you will give me what I need to fulfill your holy will.
Encountering Christ:
1. “The Children of This World Are More Prudent”: We note a tinge of sadness in Our Lord’s comment, “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.’’ In other words, people strive more intensely for the things of this world than his followers do in pursuit of the kingdom of God. The children of the world engage their intellect, will, and imagination to gain wealth, popularity, power, and comfort. They know what they want and they pursue it. While the object they pursue is ephemeral, the intensity with which they pursue it is admirable. Our Lord wants to see his followers live with that same intensity. In the Book of Revelation he says, “I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16). 
2. Want the Kingdom of God: As Christians we believe in the primacy of grace; therefore, we must principally rely on prayer and the sacraments to help establish God’s kingdom in our hearts and in the world. However, it is a frequent temptation to equate confidence in grace with indolence. St. James writes, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?... Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works” (James 2:14,18). Activism is relying too much on our work without grace. Our faith should spur us to action. To be obedient to God is to do what he asks, to take action. This does not preclude that at times we must wait; however, eventually we must act. Docility to God’s will and passivity are not the same thing; a race horse can be docile to the jockey running at full speed.
3. Creativity Born of Desire: The church and the world need Christians proactively seeking to serve where need is greatest. The saints have been eloquent models of such initiative. St. John Bosco saw the displaced boys in the streets due to the industrial revolution, so he started an orphanage and trade schools. Dr. Moscati served his community as a medical doctor and researcher. St. Katharine Drexel saw the struggles of African-Americans and Native Americans, so she founded schools for them. St. Teresa of Calcutta saw the homeless dying unloved in the streets, so she created homes for the dying. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through prayer and Scripture, but also through our talents and the needs around us. We must prayerfully discern to see where and how God is asking us to serve.
Conversing with Christ: Dear Lord Jesus, you have created me to know, love, and serve you. You have given me the skills, experiences, and opportunities to serve. Open my eyes and heart to discover those souls whom you choose to touch through me, whether it be through corporal or spiritual works of mercy—or both. May I one day, after a lifetime of service, hear you tell me “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy” (Matthew 25:21).
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will take sometime today to reflect prayerfully on my mission to serve. Am I serving where I ought? Should I keep the course or make some changes? What are some of the unmet needs I see around me where I might be useful?
 
 
Opening Prayer: Lord God, thank you for this day. Thank you for creating and redeeming me. I praise you for your goodness, wisdom, and beauty. Help me to grow more like you through my prayer today.
Encountering Christ:
·       The Lure of Money: This unusual passage is part of a chapter-long discourse concerning money which is unique to Luke’s Gospel. In tomorrow’s Gospel, we will hear how one cannot serve both God and money, and at the end of the chapter, we hear the poignant story of the rich man and Lazarus. In Luke 16:14, the center point of the chapter, we learn who Jesus had in mind during this discourse: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him.” Of course, God created us all, and he knows exactly how each one of us feels about money, whether we have a lot or very little. Let’s pray with transparency about the treasures with which Our Lord has entrusted us, asking what he would have us do with them. He calls us to use our treasures prudently, to put them to good use here on earth so as to reap eternal dividends. 
·        I Know What to Do: We are struck by the steward’s acute situational analysis. “What shall I do?... I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. [But] I know what I shall do…” We envy him for this ability to put his finger on the problem and choose a fitting solution. Our lives, on the other hand, can be filled with doubt, and sometimes with sin. We ask: “What shall I do, now that my sin has distanced me from God? I am not strong enough to stop sinning, and I am ashamed to beg for help. I don’t know what to do!” In this passage, the Lord encourages us to act and to act shrewdly. We are not to remain indecisive, but to step away from sin and act as a child of the light. Let us summon our strength–aided by grace–in order to right our ship and restore our friendship with God through the sacrament of Confession.
·       Right Stewardship: It is interesting to note the crisis which set the parable in motion: “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property.” Why would a prudent steward, one capable of “dealing with those of his own generation” and “finding welcome in their homes,” be so careless as to squander his master’s property? Perhaps he squandered his master’s property to make his own life easy and comfortable. Let us always remember that all that we have belongs to God. We are custodians of creation and of souls he has put in our care. If we are careless with his “property,” God one day will call us to account for our carelessness. But if we cherish and guard the things of God and the people he has put in our life, we are really cherishing and guarding our own happiness and security in Christ.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, grant me the grace of true prudence—the kind of prudence which seeks first the Kingdom of God. I know that you will give me everything else besides. Teach me to live as a child of the light.
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will trust in you and the graces you wish to give me so that I can take up the habit of tithing. 
 
Friday 31^st Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer: Dear Lord, I come before you asking to grow in faith, hope, and love. Grant me the grace to know and love you just a little more today. May I listen to your words attentively so that I can respond with deliberate obedience. Lord, I trust that you will give me what I need to fulfill your holy will.
Encountering Christ:
1. “The Children of This World Are More Prudent”: We note a tinge of sadness in Our Lord’s comment, “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.’’ In other words, people strive more intensely for the things of this world than his followers do in pursuit of the kingdom of God. The children of the world engage their intellect, will, and imagination to gain wealth, popularity, power, and comfort. They know what they want and they pursue it. While the object they pursue is ephemeral, the intensity with which they pursue it is admirable. Our Lord wants to see his followers live with that same intensity. In the Book of Revelation he says, “I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16). 
2. Want the Kingdom of God: As Christians we believe in the primacy of grace; therefore, we must principally rely on prayer and the sacraments to help establish God’s kingdom in our hearts and in the world. However, it is a frequent temptation to equate confidence in grace with indolence. St. James writes, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?... Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works” (James 2:14,18). Activism is relying too much on our work without grace. Our faith should spur us to action. To be obedient to God is to do what he asks, to take action. This does not preclude that at times we must wait; however, eventually we must act. Docility to God’s will and passivity are not the same thing; a race horse can be docile to the jockey running at full speed.
3. Creativity Born of Desire: The church and the world need Christians proactively seeking to serve where need is greatest. The saints have been eloquent models of such initiative. St. John Bosco saw the displaced boys in the streets due to the industrial revolution, so he started an orphanage and trade schools. Dr. Moscati served his community as a medical doctor and researcher. St. Katharine Drexel saw the struggles of African-Americans and Native Americans, so she founded schools for them. St. Teresa of Calcutta saw the homeless dying unloved in the streets, so she created homes for the dying. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through prayer and Scripture, but also through our talents and the needs around us. We must prayerfully discern to see where and how God is asking us to serve.
Conversing with Christ: Dear Lord Jesus, you have created me to know, love, and serve you. You have given me the skills, experiences, and opportunities to serve. Open my eyes and heart to discover those souls whom you choose to touch through me, whether it be through corporal or spiritual works of mercy—or both. May I one day, after a lifetime of service, hear you tell me “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy” (Matthew 25:21).
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will take sometime today to reflect prayerfully on my mission to serve. Am I serving where I ought? Should I keep the course or make some changes? What are some of the unmet needs I see around me where I might be useful?
 
Friday 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Rom. 15:14-21;  Lk. 16:1-8)
We do not know how the administrator in the gospel parable was failing to perform his duty for his master. Perhaps he had gotten lazy or had gotten complacent and had stopped giving his best effort and so was merely negligent or perhaps was actually incompetent. Whatever he had done or had failed to do, it cost him his job. He does not seem surprised that his poor performance has merited his termination. The really sad part is that it is his notice of termination that prompts him to be creative, to be astute and to finally get to work. If he had been this creative and diligent all along, he probably would not have lost his job!
            The scriptures call us to not get lazy or complacent or to rest on our past achievements. All of us have a task to do, a part to contribute towards the coming of God’s reign and this work is ongoing throughout the whole of our lives. We cannot ever think we’ve completed our part and deserve to rest in the sweet praises of what we once had accomplished no more than we can delay until the approaching termination of our days on earth to spark us into action. We are called to make good use of the things of this world without becoming tainted by having used them, always remembering that things are not what are most important and they are always ultimately left behind. Lord, with Your grace and wisdom may we make good use of the blessings we receive in this life to benefit ourselves and our brothers and sisters.