Saturday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time Yr 1 2025
Ordinary Time • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 7 viewsMinding one’s own business is difficult, for in a democracy and in a world with constant news and in which even the Church calls on to live responsibly it is difficult to distinguish opportunities to love God through love of neighbor from distractions. Yet Jesus says one’s good depends on focusing on one’s own business, not comparing what one has to work with with what a neighbor has to work with, not trying to discover how a neighbor is doing, whether it is better or worse than oneself. The reward is for love expressed in faithfulness and the punishment is for distrust that shows there is no love. So prayer for discernment in the world, pray for the grace to focus on one’s own task, and pray most of all to be focused on Jesus.
Notes
Transcript
Title
Title
Mind Your Own Business
Outline
Outline
There is a sense in which it is hard to mind one’s own business
There is a sense in which it is hard to mind one’s own business
We live in a country that is at least called a democracy so in a sense the public business is our business. We must choose and elect and then observe those elected to see if we want to elect them again.
We live in a world that is constantly brought to our doorstep or at least media outlets. I know about the economic system and its turmoil and how my church or institution may be affected by it. The war in Gaza is daily in my news, as is the war in Ukraine as are the Pope’s statements about both and the cries of Catholic charities for donations.
And when I go to the parish I am, as you are in schools, a mandatory reporter of abuse and neglect so I cannot fail to be vigilant even when I want to focus on my business which may be an hour or so of confessions.
There is a sense in which my health depends on minding my business
There is a sense in which my health depends on minding my business
In Jesus’ parable each servant has their own business, so many talents of silver or gold. My calling is not to be concerned about whether or why the other person got more or less than I. My concern is not how well the other is doing with his or her gifts. My concern is with doing the best I can with what I have been given. And in Matthew the reward is on the basis of faithfulness and not on the basis of how much one has been given or how much one gained. It is on one’s relationship to the master, we could say on the basis of faithful love, and not on the basis of comparison to others. We see that in the “useless servant” whose evil is in not trusting, thus not loving the master, the result of which is his being cast out into “the darkness outside.”
So Sisters,
So Sisters,
Pray for the discernment to see where paying attention to the world is an opportunity for love of neighbor or of Jesus and shut the rest out as a distraction.
Pray for the grace to focus, not on how much one has or on comparisons, but on faithfulness in what one has, avoiding the distraction of comparisons.
Pray most of all that one may be focused on Jesus and love for him so that the positive attraction shuts out the unnecessary distractions from faithfulness.
Easier said than done.
Amen
