Paraphrasing the Sunday Readings
Author's note: Reformatting or Paraphrasing the Sunday gospel is a method I learned from CICM Maryhill School of Theology. The method I use in these Sunday reflections is only an adaptation of the original, which was formatted on a blackboard by a theology professor in Scripture (Fr. Ver Miranda, CICM). The method used by our theology professor was for exegetical purposes - to understand the very words of the gospel and the context of meaning in which they are situated. My purpose is to reformat it in prose form for clarity of reading, understanding, and reflection. Formatting this way makes the gospel easy to digest for reflection.
25th Sunday of the Year (C)What the Lord says is this: that we place our trust in Him. Jesus said to his disciples:"A rich man had a manager who was reported to him for dissiplating his property. He summoned him and said, 'What is this I hear about you? Give me an account of your service, for it is about to come to an end.' The manager thought to himself, 'What shall I do next? My employer is sure to dismiss me. I cannot dig ditches. I am ashamed to go begging. I have it! Here is a way to make sure that people will take me into their homes when I am let go.' "So he called in each of his master's debtors, and said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' The man replied, 'A hundred jars of oil.' The manager said, 'Take your invoice, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he said to a second, 'How much do you owe?' The answer came, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' and the manager said, 'Take your invoice and make it eighty.' "The owner then gave his devious employee credit for being enterprising! Why? Because the worldly take more initiative than the other-worldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind". "What I say to you is this: Make friends for yourselves through your use of this world's goods, so that when they fail you, a lasting reception will be yours. If you can trust a man in little things, you can also trust him in greater.' If you cannot be trusted with elusive wealth, who will trust you with lasting? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's money, who will give you what is your own? "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or be attentive to the one and despise the other. You cannot give yourself to God and money."
25th Sunday of the Year (C) September 19, 2010 (Edited for September 21, 2025)
Liturgical readings
"You cannot give yourself to God and money."
The gospel speaks about money - something we all have to deal with in the world. Jesus teaches through the parable of the unjust steward what should be one's Christian attitude towards money.
First, the parable teaches us to be enterprising.
Second, it also teaches us to be faithful and responsible with small amounts, so that we can be trusted with greater.
Thirdly, Jesus finally says after the parable: "you cannot give yourself to God and money".
In his "Spiritual Exercises", St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches that the exercitant has only one end in life: "to praise and serve God our Lord". The other things of the world are created for all humanity, to be used only as means to attain to the end of serving the Lord. From this perspective given by St. Ignatius, one can now see what Jesus means in relation to all forms of wealth: that money is only one means of serving God; it is never an end in itself.
This gospel teaching of Jesus from an Ignatian perspective can help humanity see that God is the only end, and money is only one of the means to that end. It is a clear teaching but very
difficult to follow without discipline, due to humanity's basic sinfulness and the corruptibility of political and socio-economic structures. Man cannot resist the temptation to make money as an end in itself by one's own strengths alone. By his broken nature, all need Jesus and the Spirit of His strong "No", to help one resist the temptation from all forms of greed. The source of this strength to resist that temptation is always available: through prayer, the Sacraments, the Church's small communities, and a self-discipline gained from experience and a wide network of like-minded family members and friends - all mutually influencing and reinforcing each other to do what is right and just.
Scripture quotes from the readings:
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