THE VIRTUE OF ASTUTENESS

SATURDAY, THIRTY FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Rom 16:3-9,16,22-27; Ps 145:2-5M10-11; Lk 16:9-15

Buying a Place in the Heavenly Banquet

The fact that our Lord praised the astute steward in the parable we heard in yesterday’s Gospel implies that astuteness has its place in our journey to the heavenly banquet. It is a virtue of everyday living. But it is at the service of the will and the heart that loves. So, it wears the garb of the will; it is good or a virtue when the will is good, but bad or a vice when the will is vicious. What is of primary importance is the good that the heart loves, in which the will delights; when the good is appropriate for us to put our hearts on it, then our hearts are well ordered by the preference or scale of value introduced in our hearts by the good. But if the good is inappropriate for us to place our hearts and will on it, then our wills are disordered or disoriented by the love of our hearts for such a lower good. This is the nature of bad or evil will; it has irrationality in its scale of values, orientation, and operations. When astuteness enters the service of such a bad or evil will, it appears in the garb of vice. It is on the note that astuteness is essentially a virtue of the intellect or mind at the service of the will that Our Lord put the parable of the shrewd steward before his disciples for imitation. As disciples, we are well-ordered by the love of the Son of Man and God; astuteness is a desirable virtue that will help us trade all things in our possession for a place at the banquet of heaven.

Saint Paul lauded the good employment of the virtue of astuteness or shrewdness by two of his fellow workers or disciples in a special way. “My greetings to Prisca and Aquilla, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked death to save my life: I am not the only one to owe them a debt of gratitude, all the churches among the pagans do as well. My greetings also to the church that meets at their house.” This Christian couple was well-endowed with strong faith in Jesus Christ and filled with love for God to the point that they sacrificed their lives for the Gospel. In particular, they risked death to save Paul from some possible harm, as Paul acknowledged here. Their lives give a shining example of astuteness as a requirement in our Christian journey. The high importance they placed on the heavenly banquet with Christ led them to give their lives and their properties to promote the Gospel and the Church. Paul informs us that a church meets at their home. Recall that they were the ones who took time to teach Apollos Christian doctrines and the Person of Jesus Christ. All the other persons Paul greeted demonstrated their commitment to the Gospel in one way or another in their work and journeys with Paul. The sacrifice of our lives for the Gospel is worth it and in line with the will of God for us, for the Gospel contains the riches of greatest value for human souls. “Glory to him who is able to give you the strength to live according to the Good News I preach, and in which I proclaim Jesus Christ, the revelation of a mystery kept secret for endless ages, but now so clear that it must be broadcast to pagans everywhere to bring them to the obedience of faith.”

The importance of proclaiming Jesus Christ as the revelation of the mystery kept for endless ages for our salvation and eternal happiness prompts our Lord to urge the virtue of astuteness on his disciples. He uses money as a symbol of material wealth and possessions to press home this message in today’s Gospel. “I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into the tents of eternity.” The words of our Lord reveal that the Father gives us material gifts or wealth for us to use them to purchase the everlasting wealth that will not fail us. The astute use of the transitory goods would win us the everlasting goods. “The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. If then you cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches? And if you cannot be trusted with what is not yours, who will give you what is your very own?” Whatever we possess here is given to us by God to practice and perfect our love and right our scale of values. The command is that we love God with all our heart, mind, will, and strength. Our growth in the Spirit of love is in our readiness to use everything within our disposal to accomplish the divine will, revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Our Mother, Mary, is the greatest example of complete self-giving for the realisation of the will of God for the salvation of souls. Let us greet her for this sacrifice as Paul admonished: “greetings to Mary who worked so hard for you;” and ask for her intercession as our mother.

Let us pray: Grant, Lord God, that we, your servants, may rejoice in unfailing health of mind and body, and, through the glorious intercession of Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, may we be set free from present sorrows and come to enjoy eternal happiness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.