Gospel: In the Gospel, Luke uses and allegory. It is still a bit difficult to understand. Please see the Homily below for an explanation of the Master and the Steward.
Thank you: Thanx to all those who have helped to keep Holy Rosary looking beautiful. Especially the two Pat’s for mowing the church lawn and cemetery.
Septic Tank: We are looking for someone with some heavy equipment to dig out a leach field or a hole large enough for a 1000 gallon tank. If you can help, please let us know. 842-5581
Fr. Tom Lilly’s Visit: Fr. Tom and I have flown to Clarks Point for Mass, to the mountain where Fr. Kelly crashed, to the crash site of Senator Stevens, to New Stuyahok, and Levelock. We were going to both fly to King Salmon but fog stopped us. We decided to divide and conquer. Fr. Tom stayed in Dillingham and after the fog lifted I flew to King Salmon. Sunday morning the fog was back with a vengeance. Thanks to Father Tom, I celebrated mass at Saint Theresa in King Salmon while Fr. Tom celebrated mass at Holy Rosary in Dillingham.
We held up in Levelock waiting for the fog at King Salmon to lift. After a couple hours of waiting we decided to fly back to Dillingham.
In Clarks Point, Fr. Tom holds baby Jack, the next baby slated for baptism.
Have a fantastic week and enjoy the sun, or should I say Son. Fr. Scott
HOMILY
25th Ord C DLG 2007 Aspire, Amos 8:4-7; 1 Tim 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13
An Allegory has a hidden spiritual meaning. It transcends the literal sense of a sacred text. It’s a story that represents something else. In the case of the Gospel, Jesus uses an allegory. He tells us a story of deceitful business practices of a dishonest steward to make a point about the reign of God.
During the time of Jesus there were rich masters and the poor stewards. Masters made daily payments to their stewards, provided them with housing, built temples for them, and fed them. In return, the stewards were indebted to them.
The steward in the gospel was lazy. He was totally dependent on his rich master. He was dishonest when reducing the loans of the master’s debtors, the merchants.
So, the master fires the steward and the steward gets worried and takes action. He secured a new role for himself. By decreasing those merchant’s loans, the steward became their new master.
Believe it or not, in those days, this was common practice. The steward was trying to survive in a world full of corruption, deceit, and dishonesty.
But Jesus meant the immoral business story to represent something else…something heavenly, something that transcends mere earthly practices.
The steward had a conversion. He becomes astute rather than becoming more fraudulent.
The steward was quick thinking. He was realistic in assessing his situation. He was resourceful in acting to secure his future. At times he needed a sharp, quick, and ingenious response to survive.
Here is the allegory. The gospel demands a similarly sharp response. We are desperate people. We are all urgently in need of God’s grace. God is calling us to be more than stewards, but masters!
A master or patron is a person chosen by God to be a special protector of God’s people, a guardian of our beliefs and faith, and a supporter of good.
To secure our future…our life living with God forever, we must be quick thinking…for example, deciding without hesitation to do the right thing, the good thing, and the just thing.
We must be creative…thinking of new ways to incorporate God into our lives…like praying every day and asking the Holy Spirit to guide our relationships.
We must be resourceful…be good stewards…good managers of our time, our resources, our food.
We must be realistic. We must realize that we are totally dependant on God for everything.
The message here is this: Put that energy, devotion, and money, those cunning actions…those things you use when dealing with business and money and material things…put that energy into securing your future with God.
Be wise and moral rather than fraudulent and deceitful. We too are often lazy servants needing to be needled into doing the right thing, converting, or taking that next leap of faith (460 Words).
Amos 8:4-7
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! "When will the new moon be over," you ask, "that we may sell our grain, and the Sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!" The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!
1 Timothy 2:1-8
First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time. For this I was appointed preacher and apostle (I am speaking the truth, I am not lying), teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.
Luke 16: 1-13,
Then he also said to his disciples, "A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, 'What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.' The steward said to himself, 'what shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.' He called in his master's debtors one by one. To the first he said, 'How much do you owe my master?' He replied, 'One hundred measures of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.' Then to another he said, 'And you, how much do you owe?' He replied, 'One hundred kors of wheat.' He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.' And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. "For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
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