Compassionate service
November 8, 2026 – Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63, R. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Gospel – Matthew 25:1-13
In the final three Sundays of the liturgical year, we have three parables that build a crescendo of grace as we end the year.
This Sunday we have the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins followed by the Parable of the Talents next Sunday. For the Feast of Christ the King, we close with the Parable of the Final Judgment.
The grace of today’s parable is vigilance and readiness. Next week is the grace of wisdom and prudence. These graces lead to the grace that, in the end, will be the measure of our life here on Earth, compassionate service.
I invite you in these final three Sundays and the final three weeks before the First Sunday of Advent to reflect on how we have fared in living out our growing in these graces.
In the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins we are given two perspectives of being vigilant and prepared for the encounter with Jesus. Rooted in a desire to encounter Jesus, they all went out to meet the bridegroom. But from here on, there is a differentiation between being wise and foolish.
There is a quality of vigilance and preparedness that leads to an encounter with Jesus. The best example is the virtue of “age quod agis”—I will do what I am doing—often attributed to St. John Berchmans, S.J., the young Jesuit saint who excelled in doing ordinary things with great care and dedication.
One can imagine that when the encounter with the Lord comes, one simply becomes still. “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) Do what you are doing.
Pope Leo has a beautiful prayer describing this grace of encounter:
Grant all Your children the grace of encountering You. Change, shape, and transform our plans, so that we seek only You in every circumstance: in prayer, in work, in encounters, and in our daily routine. From this encounter, send us out on mission, a mission of compassion for the world.
The Parable of the Talents focuses on the responsible use of our blessings. It touches on the grace of stewardship that shows us how much God trusts us and graciously blesses us.
The depth of this trust is in the freedom on how we are to use our blessings. I believe that we tend to overlook or downplay how we are to exercise stewardship.
In his First Principle and Foundation in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote that we are created to praise, revere, and serve God and, through this, attain union with God.
We are given all of creation, all our blessings to help us attain this union. Whatever helps we are to use and what hinders we are to set aside.
This gives a slight twist to the Parable of the Talents. The story tells us to use and “invest” so that we may show results come accounting time. But I am convinced that equally if not the more important part is how—how to use the blessings or how to live out God’s will and mission.
The Lord knew he had to bring salvation to all but being fully human, the realization became gradual until with great clarity the how was the Passion, Cross, and Resurrection. He accomplished his mission and union with his Father because of his fidelity to how the Father wanted him to save us.
All this leads to the final parable, the accounting of compassionate service. We will reflect more on these two weeks from now, but pray and reflect the next two weeks on these words:
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25: 34-36)
