Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Ephesians 3:2-12  +  Luke 12:39-48
October 21, 2020

“Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”

St. Luke the Evangelist presents many “stewardship parables”.  Today’s Gospel passage offers two, one much longer than the other.  The upshot of both is an explicit moral that lets no Christian off easily:  “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”  The layman in the pew might wonder how these words apply to an ordinary Christian.

But no Christian is ordinary.  At the moment of a person’s baptism, God infuses grace into that person’s soul.  The graces given include the divine virtues of faith, hope and charity.  God entrusts this grace to his adopted child.  Consider this truth in light of Jesus’ words at the end of today’s Gospel passage.  God entrusts His own divine life to His adopted children.  And of course, the graces received at Baptism are but—so to speak—the “first installment” of our inheritance.  As we continue to grow as His children, God continues to bestow grace upon us through the sacraments and prayer in the process of divinization.

“Much will be required of the person entrusted with much”.  What will be required of us, then, as sharers in the divine life?  Are you, in this regard, a “faithful and prudent steward” of the grace God has given you as His child?  Each Autumn in our diocese a renewal of Stewardship takes place.  Yet while it’s important to assess one’s stewardship of time, talent, and treasure, even more important is one’s stewardship of grace.

Both of these virtues that Jesus speaks to today—fidelity and prudence—are required to be stewards of God’s grace.  Both help keep our attention on our Master:  the beginning and end of all the graces of our lives.