Fwd by Trần Kim Thục
A man . . . called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. (Matthew 25:14)
Valued at nearly twenty years’ wages, even one talent was an astonishing amount of money. So the master was not giving his servants a small gift or an insignificant coin. While we often think these talents represent our own gifts or abilities, a number of commentators suggest that we look at them as the extremely valuable gifts of mercy and love that God lavishes on us. And as we learn from the servant who hid his talent, those gifts multiply, not when we try to guard and keep them, but when we use them!
That’s where our first reading comes in. The “worthy wife” of Proverbs 31:10-31 is not just a quaint lesson, or worse, the product of a patriarchal society. Her story is much closer to the servant in today’s Gospel who doubled his five talents by using them—by multiplying mercy and love by sharing it.
Look at how she is described: She works busily within her household and does it “with loving hands” (Proverbs 31:13). But she doesn’t stop there. “She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy” (31:20). She does not hoard the self-giving love and compassion she has received from God. She generously gives it away, both to her family and to anyone she sees in need.
You see, it’s not her charm or beauty that gives her value. It’s her fear of the Lord, her reverence for God. It’s the way she recognizes the wideness of his mercy and love and imitates him by sharing them. That is what brings her, and her whole family, such joy.
Each one of us has received God’s precious gifts of mercy and love. Each of us has the opportunity to open our hands and our hearts to give them away to the people around us. The wife from Proverbs 31 did it. Let’s go out and do the same.
“Father, you have given me precious gifts. Help me to multiply them by sharing them.”
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