Managing God's Money
the dynamism of stewardship
Announcements for November 14, 2020:
The location for our 11:00am Mass is looking like another game-time decision. I'll send a text Sunday morning with the final call - let me know if you want to receive these notifications from us.
We now have an announcement page on our website. Visit our Parishioner Portal to find it (scroll to the bottom of any page at www.olmc.church and click the link).
Our weekend Masses are: Saturday 5:15pm in the church; Sunday at 7:30am and 9:00am in the church; Sunday at 9:00am at Walmart; and Sunday at 11:00am (outside or inside, depending on the weather).
Please be in touch with me if you need anything at all, or if you'd like to share any questions or concerns.
Dear Saints,
This weekend, our Sunday Gospel passage recounts Jesus' Parable of the Talents. It is perhaps the most serious reminder in the Scriptures that we are stewards - and not owners - of everything God's gives.
I pick this up at length in my bulletin article. Read it here.
Stewardship talk can can seem kind of stodgy, but it shouldn't be so. There is, after all, tremendous freedom, peace, and joy in seeing ourselves as God's stewards. This for at least two big reasons:
1. Being God's money manager (to update Jesus' image) is the nature of things; the reality of who we are in relation to God. The fact of the matter is that everything we have is God's, and he entrusts it to us to advance his purposes. Our life's success - our life's purpose and fulfillment - will be had in the measure we live up to this call.
2. Giving ourselves totally away in God's service we become like God, who is pure self-gift, who is for-the-other-ness. This is how you discover, perhaps paradoxically, who God has made you to be: not a nondescript conduit of his love, but a you-shaped embodiment of his love. The more we live for God and his purposes, the more we find our true selves and our life's meaning!
Maybe you have some thoughts on this as well. Let me know. Amazing that Jesus' parables still speak to us so powerfully today, nearly 2,000 years after they were first uttered!
I love you, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you very soon.
Christ's Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
PS When we make the switch to Advent, our Marian Antiphon will change with the season. Check out the Alma Redemptoris Mater here.
PPS Here's your reminder, from NASCAR driver Johny Sauter, to pray for the souls in purgatory this month.
PPPS Bishop Barron discusses the Parable of the Talents in his video below:
Bishop Barron on the Parable of the Talents
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Talents
by Eugène Burnand, ca.1908