19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Return of the Master (LK 12: 32-48)

Intro:

· End of the world is an interesting theme for artists, film producers, future tellers etc. The movies on end of the days such as 2010 have made lot of money. End of the world is therefore a big business in this consumerist world. The Businessman sells everything..

· When will be the end of the world? Nobody knows the time but everybody will agree on the “end of the world”.

· When is the end of the world for me? I don’t know. But I am sure that in 100 years the world would end for me. Say good bye to the world and to our dear and near ones.

· Jesus tells about the return of the master not to frighten us or to make us panic but with a different intention, to make us aware of the future realities that we have to face. He reveals these things so that we would be better prepared to face the reality.

Therefore what is the message of today's readings? Three things – Awareness, Responsible and Self examination.

1. Awareness

o Awareness about life

§ The most certain thing after our birth about ourselves, it is our death

§ The most uncertain thing about ourselves is the time of our death

§ Therefore be aware of the passing nature of life.

o Awareness about the things that we use

§ Story – once a rich man and a spiritual master were travelling. The rich man showed a big house and told, “This is my house”. The master asked him. Before your birth whose was that house? “It was my father’s”. After your death whose it will be? “probably my children’s”. the master asked him to repeat the first sentence. He repeated by adding a world – “At present it is my house”.

§ We are not the permanent owners or users of any of the things that we have.

§ Therefore the right mentality would be “the …… that I use”, instead of “my …..”

o Awareness about our duty towards

§ Talents and

§ People entrusted to our care

· We must be accountable in front of God the provider of blessings.

· The more you receive the more you will be accountable for.

2. Responsibility

o To return to God the blessings that we have received after increasing it. Eg; the parable of talents

o To make other grow in their life and be happy about that.

o Be compassionate and merciful

3. Call to self examination

o Admit our failure

o Ask God’s forgiveness

o Make resolutions and corrections