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Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Proverbs 31:10–13, 19–20, 30–31 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6 Matthew 25:14–30
Once I heard a lay person say:
Look at the people who gather for the Eucharist.
So many are gifted.
Some are good at teaching.
Some at business.
Some at parenting.
Some at caring for the poor.
Some at art, music, sports, or organizing community life.
Many are capable.
Many are generous.
Many are mature.
But too often, they are not involved in the life and mission of the Church.
Not because they have no gifts, but because their gifts are never invited.
Then he paused and said:
“We are,” he said, “the buried talents of the Church.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the talents.
In His time, a talent meant a great amount of money.
Today, when we hear the word talent, we think of a gift, an ability, something entrusted to us.
The master gives talents to his servants.
Two servants take the risk.
They invest.
They work.
They make the gift grow.
But one servant is afraid.
He buries the talent.
He keeps it safe, but he makes it useless.
That is the danger.
Fear can bury a gift.
A Church that does not trust people can bury gifts.
And a Christian who says, “This is not my responsibility,” can also bury the gift that God has given.
The first reading gives us a beautiful image of active faith.
The woman in Proverbs is not passive.
She works.
She creates.
She cares for her household.
She opens her hands to the poor.
Her life bears fruit.
This is what God wants from His people.
Not a passive faith.
Not a buried faith.
A fruitful faith.
Saint Paul tells us:
“You are children of the light and children of the day.”
We do not belong to the night or to darkness.
To wait for the Lord does not mean sitting still.
It means staying awake.
It means carrying light into the world.
And this mission belongs to every Christian.
After the Cultural Revolution, when the Church in China came out of great suffering, many bishops, priests, and sisters were gone.
Then the lay people carried the faith.
They prayed.
They taught.
They evangelized.
They shared the Gospel in simple ways.
And the Church began to grow again.
That is what happens when the talents of the Church are not buried.
The world is full of darkness:
violence, corruption, loneliness, confusion, and fear.
But Christ has given His Church many lights.
The tragedy is not that we have no talents.
The tragedy is that so many talents remain buried.
Today the Lord asks us:
What have you done with what I entrusted to you?
Did you hide it?
Or did you let it serve?
There are people waiting for the light you carry.
Do not bury it.
Let it shine.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Mark
Year of Mark - Get it from Amazon
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New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
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© 2025 Krakus.
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