May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for
us.
In our reading from the Gospel, the Lord Jesus tells us that
the Father is pleased to give us a kingdom.
This gift of the kingdom is something that we receive. It is something that we await. And the
kingdom is something for which we prepare.
The gift of the kingdom of God is received in faith. Over the next few Sundays we will hear from
the Letter to the Hebrews. This letter
is a beautiful exposition of faith, worship, and the Christian life. Today we hear that faith is hope that is
realized and the evidence of things that cannot be seen. Faith, dear brothers and sisters, is both a
gift that God gives to us, and a response to God made from us. Faith begins with the invitation of God
through the proclamation of his Word.
The virtue of faith is placed within our souls in the waters of Baptism. Our response in faith is assisted by the
grace of God. We were created with a
desire to seek God, and the ability to know him, as he reveals himself to us. However, our response is not forced. We are capable of rejecting the
invitation. We have that power. Our response to God is free. God, for his part, and in his love, invites
us to respond in faith.
Abraham is called our father in faith. In him we see a model of a person of
faith. Abraham responds to the
invitation of God, even though he does not possess all of the details of the
invitation. Abraham believes that God,
who is good, will lead Abraham to the good things of God. Abraham teaches us to trust in the Lord, even
in the face of uncertainty and sacrifice.
Abraham, as a man of faith, teaches us to await the fulfillment of the
promises of God with joyful anticipation and hope.
The kingdom of God is awaited in hope. Just as the servants in the parable in the
Gospel awaited the return of their master, we await the full revelation of the
kingdom in hope. Hope, like faith, is
placed within our souls in baptism. It
is the virtue by which we trust in the promises of God for forgiveness and for
salvation. We live in hope for the return of the master
when Christ will come in glory, and completely renewing all creation, will
present us as a gift to his Father. We
live in sure and certain hope, as our faith teaches us, that we will see the
Redeemer face to face when he calls each of us unto himself.
We receive the gift of the kingdom in faith. We await the revelation of the kingdom in
hope. And we prepare for the kingdom in
love. Just as we receive faith and hope
in the waters of Baptism, so too do we receive the gift of supernatural love. This is the virtue by which we love God above
all things, and we love all things because of our love for God. We lift our hearts to the Lord in love,
because the Lord has first offered his love to us. We respond to his gift.
In the gospel we hear of the wicked servant who mistreated
the other servants. The wicked servant
did not live in love because he placed his faith and his hope in himself. He tried to take the kingdom of the
master. He would not wait to receive the
kingdom as a gift. The wicked servant,
like all wicked servants, chose pride over love.
We are gathered to worship in faith. In faith, we experience today the gift of the
kingdom that we will one day receive in its fullness. We gather to worship in hope, believing in
the promises made to our fathers, and fully revealed to us in the Lord
Jesus. And we gather to worship in love,
lifting up our hearts to the Lord, whose heart was pierced out of love for
us. Amen.
Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic
Church, Monroe, NC
