Gospel reading of the Day Reflection: Go and Preach

St Cyril said of the ‘Parable of the Pounds’ in today’s Gospel (Luke 19:11-28) that we have presented to us ‘the mysteries of Christ from the first to the last’.

We are told that those gathered listening to Our Lord were expecting the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God. Jesus refuted this idea in the form of a parable, directing his followers’ attention away from the imminent, and instead to a later a period when this noble man—the God-man—returns as king, ‘having received the kingdom’. Our minds are oriented towards the end-times. 

Ten of the servants are given a pound, or mina, each (a mina being three-months wages). Eusebius says that the giving of these pounds represent the charge to go and preach the ‘one and same doctrine for all, [the] one faith, one baptism’. It is a call to mission, to go out, to set the world ablaze with the fire of God’s life-giving love. Preaching that pound of love can only ever reap a harvest. It can seem that we are given very little for the task of evangelising the world, but only if we forget Who has entrusted us with this special task: “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

God forbid we be like that last servant, who wrapped his pound in a napkin. He did not even invest it or lock it somewhere safe. There is nothing secure about a napkin. So easily lost or damaged. The seriousness of the gift is completely misjudged by the manner in which he kept it. The servant himself, nor anyone else, benefits from it. A wasted gift. 

Our Lord is giving us a wake-up call today. How seriously do we take the charge to go and preach the Gospel? The heavenly treasure the preacher has to offer enriches not only those to whom he preaches, but he too can enjoy that treasure more abundantly. Better shared than hoarded to oneself.

So be inspired by our jubilee motto, “Go, and preach”. The Kingdom is not yet here. There is still work to be done.

 

Image: St Vincent Ferrer preaching.