Gospel for November 15 2020 – Matthew 25:14-30
Gospel Reflections for November 15 2020
Your big return on investment
Today’s Gospel offers great investment advice! Any investment that increases its value is a good one for sure. This actually happens at every Mass.
When our Churches were open before the Covid restrictions, parishioners would walk down the center aisle bringing gifts of bread and wine, and your donations, to the altar.
The priest accepts them, and then says two beautiful Offertory Prayers as he prepares them for the consecration.
Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation, through your goodness, we have this bread to offer, which earth has given, and human hands have made, it will become for us the Bread of Life.”
Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation, through your goodness we have this wine to offer; fruit of the vine, and work of human hands, it will become for us our Spiritual Drink.
Notice he does not consecrate wheat or grapes but rather bread and wine, both of which require our efforts to make. The Mass is not only the action of God, but involves “our human hands” to make it happen as well. These prayers affirm our participation is necessary for the consecration to even take place. While God designed wheat and grapes to grow naturally from the earth, we increase their value and turn them into bread and wine by our efforts. The Mass is a combination of what God does …and what we do.
The Gospel affirms any work you do that produces a positive effect will be blessed by God…a good return on your investment of time and effort. If you have talents, skills, or special gifts, you will want to use them to accomplish something beautiful for your family, society, and especially for God. When you do, God designed you to feel enormously satisfied and happy.
Our Lord designed the Mass to continue this beautiful sequence of ever increasing value. From wheat and grapes, to bread and wine, and then to the real presence of Jesus Christ, we experience an ever increasing goodness
Finally, at the end of Mass come the two most important events…you receive this real presence of Jesus at communion. That should immediately impel you to sit or kneel in contemplation of His powerful presence within you, and how you will be different the rest of the day because you have Our Lord within you. Our Lord can fill you with grace and courage to offer your new self for the good others. You then leave Mass and make a positive difference in your world outside.
This is Our Lord’s business plan of life that you can be assured will shower you with blessings!
God Bless!
Fr. Dave
Did you receive an MBA in Finance at USC?
Are you now our spiritual CEO?
Be Safe.
God Bless
Tuition is so high at USC when I attended I feel more like a part owner! 🙂
Loveeeeeeeeeee your precious words Father Dave!!! We must make a positive difference in the world!! I saw a precious picture of Saint John giving our precious Jesus in the Holy Eucharist to our beautiful Blessed Mother!!!!!! It touched my heart with sooooooooooooooooo much loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Imagine the estatic joy for our Mary to receive her Son!!! The loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee in her heart must be bursting with so much Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! We toooooooooooooooo when reveiving our loving Jesus must burst forth with loveeeeeeeeeeeee and make a difference in our world!!! Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee our Jesus, loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee our Mary and loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee you for giving us the preciuos gift of our Jesus!!!
Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Franca and Dick
Thank you!
Father Dave just finished Always Forward that you gifted me whan I had issues finding Father Joe’s book. What an amazing complex, spiritual man. We love him as we love you—you two were a great spiritual team at St Paschals. God Bless you as he has blessed us.
I still miss Fr. Joe Scerbo. He was a great blessing to our parish at that time. We could not be more different and yet were complete brothers in ministry.
We watched mass tonight … please pass our good wishes on to your deacon … he did a very good job.
YEs, I will do so. Thank you for offering that.
Probably my all time favorite..esp fifth paragraph.
Blessings!
Yes, a timeless Gospel.
Fr. Dave, your brilliant Homily is inspiring! We continue to keep you in our daily prayers and we continue to do our part to make this world a better place by providing for those in need. We look forward to seeing you again soon. Blessings, Patti and Larry
Thank you for your very kind words! I appreciate them. See you at the next Holy Sepulcher events.
It was good seeing you yesterday.
Your explanation of this part f the mass was inspiring.
I was also thinking of the seeds we need to plant n the heart of people after Mass. In this time there needs to be an outpouring of love given to the poor, meaning those who have no relationship to our Lord. Then hopefully the seeds will grow int0 a real love of Christ and the results will be when the seed grows and matures into the results of Gods love in their heart.
Yes, good to see you at Fr. Joe Shea’s mother’s funeral at St. Rose of Lima in Simi Valley. Well said about seeds. Even the little we do now can grow later into something powerful.
The Homeless and Drug addicts are now in some places treated as Lepors because of the Corona.
Yes, that has long been the case. I pray this pandemic will end soon, hopefully with all the new drugs coming soon.
Dear Father Dave,
Thank you for another look into our faith.
What comes to mind is partnership with our dear Lord, which is so enormous and breathtaking….
God bless!
Kathleen A.
Yes, all good things happen in partnership with Our Lord