Using Talents Wisely

 

The morning sun peeked through the clouds as I began my drive to church today.  God shines on all His creation, even me.  As I slowed for the red light at the intersection near church, a very tiny black squirrel ran into the road, stopping in the center turn lane just in front of me.  I crept up a little and he darted back across the road, but instead of continuing further on into the woods there, he walked along the curb, and when he came to the pedestrian crosswalk lines, he began crossing again towards me, and in front of me, where he stopped.  And the light turned green.  Then, I drove into the left turn lane to get around him, and I hoped cars around me would see him and avoid him also.  And as I passed, he started to dart into the center of the cross-traffic lanes.  I didn’t see what happened next, but said a quick prayer for all creation as I entered the church.

The Gospel today was on the Parable of the Talents, and the servants who invested wisely, and the one who buried the single talent he received, yielding nothing with it.  I’ve often contemplated that parable.  I have been blessed with many talents, and wondered how well I was using them.  The priest, reflecting on the Gospel, commented that EVERYTHING we have, even our very lives, are a gift from God.  They are the talents He has given us.  We are to use our lives to grow physically AND spiritually, and to share those gifts.  That is how we multiply our talents in a way pleasing to God.  Some, however, only use those gifts selfishly; that is like burying them in the ground.  Investing our talents wisely, however, can be difficult.  Satan knows our weaknesses; he’s seen our whole lives.  He will suggest what we do with our talents, and his suggestions will sound like good things, but he knows the results will be bad, --- “look at the great good I did!!” --- prideful things.  The priest suggested that we all need a spiritual financial advisor, an expert in this area like the ones we use for our money investments.  He suggested Mary be our spiritual investment advisor.  She knows what is most pleasing to her Son, and will pray that we receive the graces to see His will for using the talents He gave us wisely.  No one will see to a better use of our talents than the One who gifted them to us --- although Satan will try to give us “some better ideas.”

I just finished Dan Burke’s talks on his book, Discernment of Spirits, which is based on of St. Ignatius’ book of the same title.  Anyone listening to Burke’s examples will see himself, his life, and many of the ways he has lived, and see Satan’s temptations in his life.  Burke’s talks give us prayers which we could/should pray often, to refute, in the name of Jesus, our daily temptations.  When Burke’s talks become available to the public, I will post the link here and share with my friends.

Meanwhile, I now think that on many of my days I am like that little black squirrel.  I have received the gift of life, and so many things seem interesting, will satisfy my desires for pleasure, for myself, that it is confusing to choose which way to go.  But out there is evil also like the cars which can crush the black squirrel in an instant, and his talents will yield nothing.  I agree that I do need a spiritual financial advisor, to guide me to use my talents wisely, safely, so they can grow.  I know what I am tempted to --- and have --- used them for, unwisely.  I will try to pray more, when I feel myself uncertain or upset in any way.

Because, I want to use those talents, those gifts, to become who --- in His deep love --- He created me to be.

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I glanced around the intersection as I began home from mass.  I saw no evidence of the little squirrel’s death.  Thank You, Lord. 

Why Satan Agrees With Our Goals

 

Jesus said to focus on helping the poor and the lowly.  That is what most people say they are trying to achieve, help those in need.  And Satan might agree with that focus, that it is a good thing to do.  What?! So why might Satan be agreeing with our goals, which seem to be focused on loving God and neighbor?  I think we are seeing why in our country, and in the world today.  The end-result focused on by all those in power sounds like a very good thing, but the means used to achieve those results can be very bad. And that is where Satan gives his advice.  It is like trying to help a poor person to get food, and Satan suggests we do that by giving him a gun so he can rob a grocer.

In our culture, there are record numbers of single people (and married people) “choosing” not to have children which they can’t properly take care of – by their definition of what take care of means, or by eliminating them by abortion other means.  Many people justify these self-centered actions by pointing to the poor children or other people they can now help, or sometimes even to the church ministries they now focus on to help the poor --- as they ignore their spouse and/or children.  Families and having kids are looked down upon by our society today, and especially family-focused activities, like prayer.

I’m reading a book titled “War and Peace,” but not the one you know.  This one is sermons by Bishop Fulton Sheen, given from 1941-1945.  They could --- or perhaps should is a better word --- be given in churches today.  He talks about women working, focused on money or careers, not their children.  He talks about prayers not allowed in school, and forgotten in homes, and college professors teaching there is no “truth or morality.”  He talks about selfish views and the low-value placed on some life, which led to getting rid of those “unneeded lives,” --- like the Jews in Nazi Germany, (and aborted babies are today). 

Perhaps Sheen’s (and other’s) sermons, along with the horrors of WWII, did bring about some change in the culture then.  After the war, when television became popular, Bishop Sheen’s program was one of the top-rated shows.  And from 1947-57 the Family Theater was a top-rated weekly radio program.  That program began and ended with “The family that prays together, stays together.”  I was born during that period, into a Christian America, where there was a truth, a moral right, and prayers were said in schools (and the pledge of allegiance).

You know where things are at now.  The primary focus of politics or in the press or in our schools is making sure we “help people in need of help” ---- as those in power define those people, and that help.  And Satan likely agrees with that end and will suggest ways to achieve it, even as he did with those doing “good things” to justify the war we now call WWII.  And all of the people in power then, on all sides in WWII, thought they were doing “good things.”  None thought they were doing evil.  Satan lied to them well.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to love as I have loved.  Love starts now, whatever the situation.  Past is past.  Love now, is helping others --- yes --- but as Jesus would have loved them.  Those ways never were self-centered, or for a political party.    

It took a world war to change the then-existing cultural mindset of our country back then, as Bishop Sheen spoke of in his sermons.  And with the similar mindset now in our culture today ….?