Parable of the Unjust Steward

Pope Francis: serve the Word of God, not the idolatry of riches and worldly cares

(Vatican Radio) The riches and the cares of the world “choke the Word of God,” said Pope Francis at Mass this morning at the Casa Santa Marta. The Pope pointed out that our life is set on three pillars: election, covenant, and promise, adding that we must trust the Father in living in the present without worrying about what will happen. 

“No one can serve two masters.” Pope Francis began his homily with the words of Christ in today’s Gospel, where He focuses on the theme of riches and cares. Jesus, the Pope said, “has a clear idea on this subject”: they are “the riches and cares of the world” that choke the Word of God, they are the thorns spoken of in the Parable of the Sower, that choke the seed that has fallen on the ground: 

“The riches and cares of the world choke the Word of God and do not allow it to grow. And the Word dies, because it is not cared for: it is choked. In that case you serve riches or you serve cares, but you don’t serve the Word of God. And this also has a temporal sense, because the Parable is somewhat constructed – the discourse of Jesus in the Parable – in time, is it not? Don’t worry about tomorrow, about what you will do tomorrow. . . . And also the Parable of the Sower is built on time: he sows, then the rain comes and it grows. Simply, we remove from time.”

The Pope emphasised that our life is founded on three pillars: the past, the present and the future. The pillar of the past, he explained, “is that of the election of the Lord.” Every one of us can say “the Lord has chosen me, has loved me,” “He has said to me ‘come’,” and with Baptism “he has chosen me to go along a road, the Christian road.” The future, on the other hand, concerns “walking towards a promise”, the Lord “has made us a promise.” Finally, the present “is our response to the God Who is so good that He has chosen me.” The Pope said, “He makes a promise, he proposes a covenant with me, and I make a covenant with Him.” So these are the three pillars: “election, covenant, and promise”: 

“The three pillars of the whole story of the Salvation. But when our heart enters into what Jesus explains to us, it takes away time: it takes away the past, it takes away the future, and one is confused in the present. For one who is attached to riches, neither the past nor the future is important; he has everything here. Wealth is an idol. I don’t need a past, a promise, an election: nothing. He who is worried about what will happen, takes away his relation with the future – “but can one do this?” – and the future becomes futuristic, but no, it doesn’t direct you to any promise: you remain confused, you remain alone.”

This is why Jesus tells us we must either follow the Kingdom of God or the riches and cares of the world. The Pope said with Baptism “we are chosen in love” by Him, we have “a Father that has sent us along a road.” And so “even the future is joyful,” because “we are walking towards a promise.” The Lord “is faithful, He does not disappoint” and so we too are called to do “what we can” without disappointment, “without forgetting that we have a Father who chose us in the past.” Riches and cares, he warned, are the two things “that make us forget our past,” that make us live as if we didn’t have a Father. And even our present is a present that doesn’t work”: 

“Forgetting the past, not accepting the present, disfiguring the future: that’s what riches and cares do. The Lord tells us: “But be calm! Seek the Kingdom of God, and everything else will come.’ Let us ask the Lord for the grace not to fool ourselves with worries, with the idolatry of riches, and to always remember that we have a Father Who has chosen us; to remember that this Father promises us a good thing, which is walking towards that promise; and having courage to take the present as it comes. Let us ask this grace from the Lord.”

The Holy Father concelebrated Mass with Bishop Arturo González of Santa Clara in Cuba and others. Employees of the Vatican Museums were in attendance at the liturgy.

Pope Benedict: Parables show God's transforming power,

The following comes from the CNA:

God is the prime mover in the story of salvation, Pope Benedict XVI taught on June 17, as he discussed Christ's parables about the similarity between the Kingdom of God and the growth of seeds.

“The message is clear,” the Pope told pilgrims in his midday Angelus address. “The Kingdom of God, even if it requires our cooperation, is firstly a gift of the Lord, a grace that precedes man and his works.” 

“Our small force, apparently impotent before the problems of the world, if placed in that of God is not afraid of obstacles, because it is certain of the victory of the Lord.”

This is “the miracle of God’s love” that should make us “optimistic, despite the difficulties, sufferings and evil that we encounter,” he said.

The Pope was dwelling upon two of Christ’s parables as recounted in Sunday's Scripture readings from the Gospel of St. Mark. In the first, a seed is sown and then grows by itself while the farmer sleeps, while in the second the tiny mustard seed grows to become “the greatest of all shrubs.”

Pilgrims gathered in a sunny St. Peter’s Square heard an explanation of the first parable, as referring to “the mystery of creation and redemption, the fruitful work of God in history” that will conclude with Jesus' assured victory at the end of time.

“Every Christian, then, knows that he must do all he can, but that the final results depend on God,” said the Pope, suggesting that “this knowledge will sustain his daily labors, especially in difficult situations.”

The parable reminded Pope Benedict of the advice given by the 16th century founder of the Society of Jesus, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who told his followers to “act as if everything depended on you, knowing well that in reality everything depends on God.”

Meanwhile, in the parable of the mustard seed, Christ speaks of a plant whose strength stems from its initial smallness.

So too with the kingdom of God, the Pope said, which is a “humanly small reality, composed from those poor in heart, from those who are not confident in their own strength but in the love of God, from those not important in the eyes of the world.”

Yet it is in their lives that “the power of Christ” breaks through “and transforms what is apparently insignificant.”

The Pope concluded his Angelus address by leading pilgrims in the midday Marian prayer, before addressing the crowds in various languages and, finally, imparting his apostolic blessing.