{"id":102,"date":"2010-01-31T20:55:23","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T03:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=102"},"modified":"2010-01-31T20:55:23","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T03:55:23","slug":"hiding-your-talents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=102","title":{"rendered":"Hiding Your Talents?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center; margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">Thursday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center; margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">St.<\/span><\/st1:place><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\"> Thomas Aquinas<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center; margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">2 Sm 7:18-19, 24-29; Mark 4: 21-25<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" align=\"center\">Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h2>\n<p><o:p><font size=\"5\" face=\"Arial\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Arial\">Are you hiding?<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>I mean, the real you.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>God has blessed you with some special talents.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Are you using them.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Are you being the real you, or are your gifts hidden under a bushel basket?<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Before you answer that question, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about what hiding means.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes we think we are being humble by using our talents sparingly.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>We say we are just being shy.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>But whatever it is that God gave us as a talent- a singing voice, an athletic talent, the ability to teach, the gift of understanding- whatever it is- it needs to be used fully.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>It needs to blossom like a beautiful flower.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>We are not being humble when we hide our talents.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Rather, we are not recognizing the beauty of the gift that we have.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>And as Jesus says in the Gospel, people who hide their gifts in this way will lose them.<span>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Arial\">Other people are quick to recognize and practice their talents,<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>But they use them only for themselves, and not for the benefit of others.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Their talents become self serving, and so, they too are hidden, because they are not shared.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>All of us can and should benefit from each others gifts, to complement the ones that we have. <span>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Arial\">There are many opportunities we have practice and share the gifts that we have.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>If you feel that little urge nudging you, do try out for the Holy Family production of Godspel; do volunteer to help out with Prep; share yourself in Bible Study- you may have special insights everyone else needs to hear.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Do it, do it now.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hide under a basket.<span>\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time St. Thomas Aquinas 2 Sm 7:18-19, 24-29; Mark 4: 21-25 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00c2\u00a0 Are you hiding?\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, the real you.\u00c2\u00a0 God has blessed you with some special talents.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you using them.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you being the real you, or are your gifts hidden under a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}