Talents

"Believe in yourself.

You are braver than you think,

more talented than you know,

capable of more than you can imagine."

Roy T. Bennett

On Saturday evening mass the Gospel was from Matthew 25:14-30. It was about the man who was going away for a long time and entrusted three workers, each according to his ability, with talents. One worker received 5 talents, another received 2 talents and the last man got 1 talent. I have heard this gospel many times and Saturday I finally understood it. It wasn't so much about talent of special gifts like musicians, athletes, singers, actors, creative people, etc. but more of faith. During the homily the priest mentioned that a talent equaled a whole year's salary.  I looked up the word talent on the Internet and read that today it would be worth around $400,000 dollars!

The first man doubled the talent, the second also doubled his talent but the third man buried his because he was afraid to lose it and wanted to return the whole thing to his master.  The story is not so much about money, but about stewardship, responsibility and being prepared. When Jesus returns, we will need to return our talent and which one will we be? What have we done with our talent? Will we act like the first, second or the third man when we confront Jesus?

When we are baptized we are given grace and this can never be taken away from us. God has invited us and will we RSVP? We need to invest our talents and not waste them.   We must humbly look at our lives and do the best we can with the talents we have. True joy will be found in our response of being faithful in what we do and we will be rewarded by entering heaven.

The priest gave the example of the woman who takes care of her family, cooks, cleans, is honest, cheerful, and uses her talents in the best way she can by maximizing her humble talents. Doing the best that we can is my understanding because I have never considered a woman's every day work as a talent.

I had a better understanding of the talent parable but was curious about how another priest might explain the same Gospel. I listened to a priest from Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles and paraphrasing what he said: The parable was told to his disciples because He was going away and was entrusting the talents to them until He returned. Those that increased their talents would share in the Master's joy and be given great responsibility. The man who buried his treasure out of fear of losing it all did not make the Master happy. Everyone who increases his talent will be given more. The ones who do not increase their talent, everything will be taken away. They cannot share in their Master's joy. He sees them as partners because he trusts them, appreciates them, and they are given more responsibility.

Our valuable talent is our gift of faith. We continue what He began and the gift of faith needs to be invested by our actions and how we live our lives. Invest the faith we have been given. Help the needy, visit the ill, feed the poor, work for justice, and love our neighbors are some of the things to strengthen our faith. How did we use the faith we were given at Baptism? Faith is too valuable to hide or as the parable states it is too valuable to bury. What will we show Jesus when He returns? 

Even though I do not have artistic talents like my brother and daughter, I cannot cook like some of my friends, I have no knitting or crocheting talent, I am not a gardener with beautiful plants so I wonder what my talent is. I have no idea what I will present to God when he returns. It seems that in my life I have done more burying than investing. I need to look at my life and see how I can begin to invest my talents. Once I find out what they are, and I multiply them, then God will say, come share My joy in heaven.

On the internet I found 108 ideas that can be talents.  Even though I never thought the things I love to do are talents, they were on the list so I will accept ten that I might have: Writing, travel planning, photography, slide creations, humor, reading, typing, ability to make friends, volunteering and dancing. I will have to figure out how to invest those talents and maybe that will help me enter heaven when Jesus returns and asks what I did with my talents! 

"When I stand before God at the end of my life,

I would hope that I not have a single talent left.

Then I can say, 'I used everything you gave me.' "

Erma Bombeck