Have you ever stopped to ask
yourself why the Church exists? What its true purpose is here on earth? And,
why it still exists even today?
The answer is simple: the Church exists for our salvation, with the sole purpose of helping us to get to Heaven. However, the Church also exists to remind us that there will be a time when Heaven and earth will not exist in the way that we understand them now, and that will happen when Christ comes again. When He comes not as a tiny child, not as a man suffering for our sins on a cross, but as a Judge, making judgment upon our actions here on earth.
Within the Church, there is a branch of theology known as Eschatology, which is, quite simply, the Theology of the Last Things, that is, Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. And, within the understanding of Judgment, there are two forms, particular and general. Particular Judgment is the judgment we all undergo upon death, General Judgment is what happens when Christ comes again, revealing universally where we went after death.
In our second reading we see elements of the Particular and in our Gospel, we see the General and, as many saints and theologians have interpreted it, receiving the Master’s joy is Heaven, darkness and wailing and grinding of teeth is Hell.
In fact, that is the way an early Church Father, by the name of St. Gregory the Great interpreted this parable in our Gospel today. He saw the man who went on a journey as Jesus. He saw the journey as Jesus’ Ascension to heaven. Because Jesus is in heaven and while we await his Second Coming we have each been given talents to make good use of by the Lord. In the end, however, we will all face judgment and we will all be judged by our use of the gifts we received.
That is why the talents are to be seen as more than just money, they are to be seen as something of incredible worth. In fact, a talent was not a coin at all; it was a weight in silver of about 36 Kilos. One talent, it is said, was probably equivalent to a whole lifetime's wages for the servant.
What that means is that God has entrusted to us something of great worth, of great value and He wants to see how we use that something He has given. Because what He has given us isn’t a coin, or silver, He has given us salvation, and by that salvation He has bestowed upon us countless graces. Those graces, those gifts that He gives us are the equivalent of those talents, and we are to use them to the best of our abilities; we are to daily multiply those graces as those servants in our Gospel today.
Yet, there is something more, as our Gospel shows, a detail that, though seemingly unimportant is actually more important than we might realize. For the Master did not return immediately, he gave them time to multiply, to make good use of their talents. So, too, does Christ do the same, for He has not returned yet, so there is still time, but when that time is we do not know.
I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating. The reason the saints did what they did and acted the way they did, the reason they would pray more than they would eat, more than they would sleep, was because they were aware that they had been given a limited time here on earth to make use of everything that had been entrusted to them by God, and they wanted to be ready for their Master’s return.
They knew that as long as they had breath in their lungs, that as long as the sky didn’t open up, it was one more day for them to multiply the graces they were given, one more day to be ready for Christ when He comes again.
And, while Christ did not come to Judge the living and the dead in their day, the time they spent being ready made them worthy of Heaven.
These are the realities we don’t speak a lot about anymore, but they are just as important as anything else, actually, probably more important, because they point to why we are here, they point to what we are doing, they point to the purpose and the actual meaning of life itself.
We search endlessly trying to figure out the meaning of existence, to understand what happens after death. Scientists, philosophers, theologians, and many others have racked their brains, while the saints merely spent time in prayer learning more than all of them combined.
The Church exists to not just help us to get to Heaven, but to remind us and to give us a place to pray, to stress the importance of meditating upon these Last Things so that, in the end, as St. Paul reminds in our second reading, we may be found worthy as children of light, not sleeping like the rest, metaphorically speaking, but staying alert and sober, ready for Christ whenever and however He comes to us.
The answer is simple: the Church exists for our salvation, with the sole purpose of helping us to get to Heaven. However, the Church also exists to remind us that there will be a time when Heaven and earth will not exist in the way that we understand them now, and that will happen when Christ comes again. When He comes not as a tiny child, not as a man suffering for our sins on a cross, but as a Judge, making judgment upon our actions here on earth.
Within the Church, there is a branch of theology known as Eschatology, which is, quite simply, the Theology of the Last Things, that is, Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. And, within the understanding of Judgment, there are two forms, particular and general. Particular Judgment is the judgment we all undergo upon death, General Judgment is what happens when Christ comes again, revealing universally where we went after death.
In our second reading we see elements of the Particular and in our Gospel, we see the General and, as many saints and theologians have interpreted it, receiving the Master’s joy is Heaven, darkness and wailing and grinding of teeth is Hell.
In fact, that is the way an early Church Father, by the name of St. Gregory the Great interpreted this parable in our Gospel today. He saw the man who went on a journey as Jesus. He saw the journey as Jesus’ Ascension to heaven. Because Jesus is in heaven and while we await his Second Coming we have each been given talents to make good use of by the Lord. In the end, however, we will all face judgment and we will all be judged by our use of the gifts we received.
That is why the talents are to be seen as more than just money, they are to be seen as something of incredible worth. In fact, a talent was not a coin at all; it was a weight in silver of about 36 Kilos. One talent, it is said, was probably equivalent to a whole lifetime's wages for the servant.
What that means is that God has entrusted to us something of great worth, of great value and He wants to see how we use that something He has given. Because what He has given us isn’t a coin, or silver, He has given us salvation, and by that salvation He has bestowed upon us countless graces. Those graces, those gifts that He gives us are the equivalent of those talents, and we are to use them to the best of our abilities; we are to daily multiply those graces as those servants in our Gospel today.
Yet, there is something more, as our Gospel shows, a detail that, though seemingly unimportant is actually more important than we might realize. For the Master did not return immediately, he gave them time to multiply, to make good use of their talents. So, too, does Christ do the same, for He has not returned yet, so there is still time, but when that time is we do not know.
I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating. The reason the saints did what they did and acted the way they did, the reason they would pray more than they would eat, more than they would sleep, was because they were aware that they had been given a limited time here on earth to make use of everything that had been entrusted to them by God, and they wanted to be ready for their Master’s return.
They knew that as long as they had breath in their lungs, that as long as the sky didn’t open up, it was one more day for them to multiply the graces they were given, one more day to be ready for Christ when He comes again.
And, while Christ did not come to Judge the living and the dead in their day, the time they spent being ready made them worthy of Heaven.
These are the realities we don’t speak a lot about anymore, but they are just as important as anything else, actually, probably more important, because they point to why we are here, they point to what we are doing, they point to the purpose and the actual meaning of life itself.
We search endlessly trying to figure out the meaning of existence, to understand what happens after death. Scientists, philosophers, theologians, and many others have racked their brains, while the saints merely spent time in prayer learning more than all of them combined.
The Church exists to not just help us to get to Heaven, but to remind us and to give us a place to pray, to stress the importance of meditating upon these Last Things so that, in the end, as St. Paul reminds in our second reading, we may be found worthy as children of light, not sleeping like the rest, metaphorically speaking, but staying alert and sober, ready for Christ whenever and however He comes to us.
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