For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/111608.shtml
Guys, tonight's first reading from Proverbs is an encouragement for you to 'marry above yourself''! Now don't get the wrong idea. The proverb is not about marrying a girl better looking than you, although that is not a bad idea and usually not that hard to achieve. The proverb is not about marrying a girl who will make more money than you, although that also perhaps is not a bad idea, and not as hard to achieve as it used to be, since almost 57% of college students are now women. Guys, tonight's proverb is about marrying a woman that is holier than you. The proverb extols the virtues of a good and holy wife, whose worth is beyond measure. In terms of our faith, this means that the kind of woman that a guy should be looking for is a woman that knows Christ so well that a guy has to deepen his faith in Christ if he is to have any chance to get the girl. Ladies, I'm sorry that you perhaps do not have the same luxury of looking for guys who are holier than you. Although it is difficult for anyone in today's culture to live a virtuous life, especially in the area of sexuality, it is more than safe to say that women are more naturally virtuous and open to the things of God. That is why of course that God, when He was ready to make an everlasting covenant with His people, went to a woman, the Virgin Mary, as the representative of all of humanity, to receive a 'yes' to his invitation. Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word. Ladies, I pray that you will be able to find guys who desire such goodness and purity from you. I know your situation of trying to find a man who is virtuous enough to marry is a difficult problem. Besides, if I find a virtuous and holy guy, I'm not going to ask him to date, but I'm going to ask him to go to seminary. Well, at any rate, the discernment of vocations takes a lot of prayer, so I invite everyone to keep praying.
St. Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians invites them to be children of the day and not of the night. He invites his audience to invest liberally in the things of heaven, the things that last forever, and to invest conservatively in the things that provide only fleeting peace and security. Now St. Paul did not know the current condition of the stock market when he wrote his letter to the Thessalonians, but he did know the fragile nature of the human condition. If you turn on the tv this evening, you could find financial advisors telling us to do 10 different things with our money. Some will be telling us to be very conservative; others, to take advantage of the current situation and take risks that may pay off. But St. Paul reminds us that no matter what our investment strategy is with our money, based on the current conditions of the market, that our trust in money should always be conservative when compared to the trust that we put in the promises of God. In reference to God's gifts of faith, hope and love, we are to be as liberal as possible in asking for these gifts from God and sharing these gifts around us. This is how we become children of light.
The parable of the talents reflects what happens to a person who keeps his faith hidden. The parable shows that there is no 'safe way' to get to heaven. We cannot get into heaven by trying to keep some small spark of faith alive and living a barely good enough life to get in the back door of God's favor. No, if we live this kind of faith, we will be called wicked, lazy servants. Faith is a gift that can only grow when it is risked, when it is exposed to those who might try to take it away. In such an environment, however, faith grows bigger and stronger, and we grow in confidence as children of God in the midst of a generation that puts its trust in things that easily pass away. Keeping our faith to ourselves is a short road for losing our faith, and this is the path that I would say at least 90% of Catholics students take when they are in college. There will always be challenges to our faith - moral, personal, philosophical - challenges to God's goodness or to his existence. But we have to risk our faith anyway, or else it will quickly become worthless.
One of the ways we grow stronger in faith is to be generous with our time, talent and treasure. We volunteer to reach out to the poor, we volunteer to teach our faith, and we willingly sacrifice and fast from our own wants in order to contribute financially to the Church. This is the risk of faith that everyone should be taking. Thankfully, college students are mostly poor, so the temptation to keep too much money to yourself is not as dangerous as it would be for a rich person. Most of you have debt, which is a better position to be in when Jesus return than to have too much money. Still, all the same, it is possible for a rich person to be detached from his money and generous, and for a poor person to be attached to what little he has, and to be stingy. The parable of the talents show us this clearly. Our giving to the Church is an indication of our detachment from the things of this world. Giving to the Church is always more about us living our faith than about the Church's need to receive. We do want to invite students to help pay the light bills around here, and to take ownership of the Center. This is important and is a constitutive element of being a full member of the Church. It is something you will all be asked to do in your future parishes. But most of all, we want students who are only conservatively attached to the things of this world, and are liberally attached to the things of God. And so we invite you all, through the forms that are in the bulletin this weekend, to contribute $15 a month to the St. Lawrence Center, and more if you can or should. If you do an EFT, you don't have to worry about bringing cash when you come to Mass. Please take a bulletin as you leave Mass today and prayerfull consider what God might be asking you to do. +m
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