Deacon Larry

Thursday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

1 Mac 2: 15-29; Luke 19: 41-44

Dc. Larry Brockman

Just because we don’t carry animals to an altar to be burned there, doesn’t mean that we don’t offer pagan sacrifices in today’s world.  Ok then, so what would it mean to offer sacrifices to the King today according to some decree?  A decree which runs counter to the long standing teaching of our religion?  I think that when we give significant time, talent, or treasure in support of any cause, then we are making a sacrifice.   

Now, we have been asked to offer time, talent, and treasure in some measure to our Church.  Father Ennis spoke about the treasure part of stewardship this past weekend.  He spoke about sacrificial giving- giving which is out of our needs rather than out of our surplus.  Well, the same thing applies to our relationship with the secular world.  Whenever we give significant time, talent, or treasure to the secular world, we are making a sacrifice- offering up our treasure out of our needs rather than our surplus.  And the fact is, that we have only so much time, talent and treasure to give, so that whether we like it or not, we are setting a priority on how we use our time, talent, and treasure.  And if we make our priority anything in the secular world that compromises our relationship with God then it is like the offering of sacrifices to the King in accordance with the decree because the “King” becomes something other than Christ.  We can offer such pagan sacrifices by supporting a blatantly evil cause- like Planned Parenthood; and by an addiction that depletes our time, talent or treasure, such as an addiction to pornography or video games or gambling, or drugs, or TV, or football, or even work.   

This is the time of year when we are being asked to reflect.  Reflect on the fact that at any time, the end could be near.  It is imperative that we have our priority straight on how to allocate our time, talent, and treasure.  Why?  Because you don’t want Jesus to say to you:  “They will smash you to the ground and your children within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation” 

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 7:45 am and is filed under Holy Family Weekday Homilies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.