“Each sings a song, and helps to make music for the world.”
Saint Teresa of Calcutta
What is the purpose of the gifts, talents, and abilities that have been bestowed upon us?
Saint Teresa of Calcutta was once staying with a community of sisters working with the Aborigines of Australia. She learned of a man who lived isolated from the community. Everyone ignored him and his house was disordered and dirty.
Mother Teresa visited him and offered to clean his house, wash his clothes, and make his bed, but the man refused saying, “I’m OK let me be.” Under Mother’s persistence he finally relented. While she was cleaning she discovered a beautiful lamp that the man never used because he had no visitors to light it for.
“Would you light it every night if the sisters came?” she asked.
“Of course,” replied the man.
From that day on, the sisters visited him every evening.
Two years later, after Saint Teresa left Australia, she received a message from the man. “Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still.”
Every action we take has more value and more impact on the world than we realize. Even the smallest action can lead to great change in the world.
A Lesson From Doctor Who
In the British science fiction series, “Doctor Who,” there is a moment when the Doctor is discussing the importance of an ordinary man. “An Ordinary man, that’s the most important thing in creation. The whole world’s different because he’s alive.”
Think about that for a moment. The entire world is different because you are in it. You have an effect on all of the people you interact with, and they in turn interact with others. You may never know the difference you make in the world, but that doesn’t mean you don’t make one.
Every person in the world is given a unique combination of gifts, talents, and abilities that no one else is given in the same way. Every person in the world is here to accomplish a task that no one else can accomplish in the same way. If we fail to use our gifts as God intended, then there is no telling what the loss to the world may be.
Investing Our Gifts
The Parable of the Talents is the story of a wealthy man who is about to embark on a long trip. Before he leaves he gives a sum of money to three of his servants. Knowing the character of their master the three servants handle the money in different ways. The first two invest the money and experience a return on their investment. The third buries the money.
When the master returns the first two servants return his money with interest and they are praised for their actions. The third returns to the master exactly what he was given. The third servant is punished because he let the talent he was given languish. He did not invest it or build upon it even though he knew this was what the master expected.
Author Katherine Cather tells the story of Tonio, a young boy growing up in the town of Cremona. The life of Cremona centered around music. It seemed that every citizen of Cremona was involved in making music. Some wrote music, some played instruments, and some sang. But Tonio could do none of those things. When his friends gathered to sing, Tonio would sit off to the side and whittle on stray pieces of wood with his knife.
One day a well dressed man stopped to listen to the boys sing. The boys recognized him but Tonio did not. “That is the great Amati” his friends told him, “the greatest violin maker in all of Italy.”
Tonio was inspired. The next day he gathered some of his wood carvings and set off to the house of the great Amati. After some heated discussion with the doorkeeper, Tonio at last found himself face to face with the master.
“Why do you want to make violins?” Amati asked the boy.
“Because I love music,” Tonio answered. “I love music but my voice is squeaky. I can do nothing but whittle.”
The master laid his hand on Tonio’s shooulder. “”Come into the house and you shall try. The song in the heart is all that matters, for there are many ways of making music. Some play violins, some sing, some paint pictures and make statues, while others till the soil and make flowers bloom. Each sings a song, and helps to make music for the world. If you put your best into it, the song you sing with knives and wood will be just as noble as the song with voice
or violin.”
And that is how Antonio Stradivarius learned how to make the finest violins the world has ever seen, unmatched even today.
The Parable of the Talents reminds us that the gifts we have been given are not for us to hoard or use selfishly for our own gain. We are expected to develop our gifts and talents for the benefit of others. The gifts God has given us are to be used to build up the Body of Christ. We do this by using these gifts to glorify God and to help our community. There are no small gifts. Ask yourself what gifts has God given to me and how am I using them? Do I develop them, use them and share them? In other words, do I invest them?
Let us all take our God-given gifts, and use them to glorify God and serve our brothers and sisters. In this way we will return our gift to God ten times over.
Pax Vobiscum
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time