HOMILY Mt. 25: 14-30

We all have talents. I don't have all the talents of another person and in some cases, I share a talent, but not to the same degree as another person. I am baptized. I received 12 fruits and 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. Every baptized person gets them. So we all get fortitude, but I may have more fortitude than another person because that is God's plan for me. I will need lots of fortitude to be all that God made me to be. Someone else does not need so much fortitude, but they may need more prudence.

Let us not compare and contrast ourselves with another person. Some of us are better at math than others. They may have a call to be a scientist. I do not have that call. My job is to use the gifts I have to the best of my ability. To live life in some minimal way, or out of fear, is to do ourselves much damage. In the gospel, the fellow who got the one talent, he was paralyzed by fear, so he buried the money.

When I ask, "What is the least I need to get by?" I am going down the road of sloth and maybe immorality. In business, a person may ask the legal department what can they do to satisfy their own greed, and self-centeredness, yet stay within the law. This is immoral but it may be legal. As a baptized person, I am gifted to do the "right thing," which comes out of my sense of oneness with all other people. This is called the way of the cross.