Daily Gospel Reflection - Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
August 26, 2021
Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 24:42-51
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,
whom the master has put in charge of his household
to distribute to them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.
Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.
But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’
and begins to beat his fellow servants,
and eat and drink with drunkards,
the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day
and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely
and assign him a place with the hypocrites,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
Source: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus praises the faithful servant who served his master in a theo-drama. We are called to serve our Master in the same way. A theo-drama is written and directed by God. On the great stage that is the created universe and according to the prototype that is Christ, we are invited to “act,” to find and play our role in God’s theater.
The problem is that the vast majority of us think that we are the directors, writers, and above all, stars of our own “ego-dramas,” with other people functioning as either our supporting players or the villains in contrast to whom we shine all the brighter.
Of course, our dramas are always uninteresting, even if we are playing the lead role. The key is to find the role that God has designed for us, even if it looks like a bit part. Sometimes, in a lengthy novel, a character who has seemed minor emerges as the fulcrum around which the entire narrative turns.
When we de-center the ego and live in an exciting and unpredictable relationship with God, we realize very clearly that our lives are not about us. And that’s a liberating discovery.
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