Daily Gospel Reflection
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November 4, 2022
Jesus 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 measures 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 the children of light.”
I was in an admissions role at Our Lady’s University for many years. One of the topics we regularly presented during our applicant interviews was to ask them how they might navigate tricky ethical situations.
I would preface this with the caveat that most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking they will do something shady. Bad behavior in this sense often starts with something that seems innocuous, and then well, that didn’t seem so bad to them at the time. Then it is easy to say, “Look, no one got hurt—I can do it just one more time.” Then it’s repeated and becomes the slippery slope.
In this gospel passage, we know that the steward squandered the rich man’s property, but we don’t know the details. Was he trying to help the debtors by collecting less than they owed? Was he skimming off the top to line his own pockets? We aren’t sure.
We know that his last act as an employee was to help the debtors while ensuring his employer received at least part of what he was owed. The steward knew that he might need help from the community, and this was his way of shrewdly making amends.
I don’t believe Christ is asking us to be as shrewd as the unjust steward but it does present the challenge: how are we being called to make amends? I have never stolen from an employer, but I have been unkind. I’ve said hurtful things and ignored a situation because I was too selfish to give my time or money. I can’t go back to fix it all, but I can be more conscious of how I steward my behavior in the future.
Lord, help us to be good stewards to each other and to make amends when we fail to do what is right.
Prayer
Merciful God, you know that we fall short of our desire to follow you. Help us to see the ways that we, too, suffer from a lack of strength and an excess of shame that we may more readily confess, repent, and continue to serve you. Help us to depend more on those we love than on our own material resources, for it is in encountering others that we truly learn to serve and to love and therefore to follow you as we desire. Amen.
Saint of the Day
As Bishop of Milan in the 1500s, and a pillar of the Church of his time, St. Charles Borromeo was a pastor whose love for his flock fueled his untiring efforts to care for them. Charles Borromeo is best-known for establishing the tradition of Sunday School to teach young children the faith, a practice that continues to this day.
Charles was born to an aristocratic Italian family in 1538, in the thick of the European Protestant Reformation. As a child, Charles had a speech impediment and seemed to lack intelligence. In school, despite his disadvantages, Charles persisted diligently in his studies and made steady progress.
Soon after advancing to study for a doctorate, Charles learned that his uncle, Cardinal de Medici, had been elected pope. His uncle, now Pope Pius IV, appointed Charles to several prestigious appointments in the Roman Curia, despite Charles' relative youth. At the time of these appointments, Charles was only twenty-three years old and not yet ordained a priest. The more honor Charles received, however, the more detached he became from the trappings of success. As he had during his studies, Charles remained steadily methodical in his work serving the Church in the Curia.
Charles' uncle, Pope Pius IV, wanted to reconvene the Council of Trent, which had been suspended for close to a decade. Charles assisted his uncle by diligently calling bishops together and coordinating their work. Charles was a behind-the-scenes force who enabled an important Church council to conclude its work.
When Charles inherited his family’s estate, most people expected him to leave the clerical state and marry. Instead, he renounced his part of the family fortune and was ordained a priest. Two months later, he was consecrated as a bishop.
Charles continued to work in Vatican administration—such as overseeing the creation of a new catechism and liturgical texts—but he longed to be with the faithful of his diocese, Milan, which had lacked a resident bishop for some 80 years. Finally, in 1566, Charles was able to move to Milan and began to enact a robust program for renewal, restoring order and stability to the post-Reformation Church in Milan.
Charles had a large income from a number of sources, but he gave most of it to charity, especially families living in poverty, and he always lived simply. When he was not in his official robes, he owned only one worn-out cassock for his personal use.
Charles' prayerful and joyful spirit was well-respected in Milan and attracted many people to him. Charles made it his first priority to seek holiness and perfection himself, and that effort shone forth to others and inspired them.
People listened to him, even though his preaching was hindered by his speech impediment because he spoke the truth. “I have often wondered how it was that, without any natural eloquence or anything attractive in his manner, he was able to work such changes in the hearts of his hearers,” wrote one of his friends. “He spoke but little, gravely, and in a voice barely audible, but his words always had an effect.”
He was not content to let children only receive instruction in the faith from their pastors at Mass, so he established the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), which was the first “Sunday School” practice to catechize children in the faith.
Charles' reforms were not always well-received. Monks from a wealthy monastery disliked his orders to return to simplicity and plotted to assassinate him. One monk crept up behind Charles while he was praying and fired a gun into his back. The bullet did not pierce his clothes, however, and Charles felt that he had been saved by a miracle; he immediately took a retreat to re-dedicate his life to God.
When Milan was struck by a famine, Charles organized relief supplies to sustain the whole city and used his own means to feed 3,000 people every day for three months.
Later, when the Bubonic plague struck the region, Charles dedicated all of his time to caring for the sick, publicly denouncing the civil officials who fled the city and shaming them into returning. Business ground to a stop when no one wanted any contact with the city, and the 70,000 people within began to starve. Charles used all of his resources to feed people, and incurred large debts during the 18-month crisis. He even used banners and tapestries from his home and from the cathedral to clothe the needy.
In a sermon at a synod, Charles counseled the bishops: "Are you in charge of a parish? If so, do not neglect the parish of your own soul, do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself. You have to be mindful of your people without becoming forgetful of yourself." Yet, Charles was indefatigable in his care for the people entrusted to him—he was constantly making visits to parishes, and would engage anyone who wanted to clarify their understanding of the faith, from princes to peasants. Worn out by his pastoral care, Charles died on November 3, 1584; he was only forty-six years old.
The chapel in Alumni Hall is named after St. Charles Borromeo and features the stained glass window above. The painting above of Charles caring for the plague-stricken citizens of Milan is part of the collection of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art on campus. Some of Charles' relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and he is the patron saint of catechists, bishops, and those learning the faith.
St. Charles Borromeo, heroic teacher and pastor of souls—pray for us!
Image Credit: Giacinto Brandi (Italian, 1621-1691), St. Carlo Borromeo and the Plague-Stricken, n.d., oil on canvas. Raclin Murphy Museum of Art: Bequest of Mr. Joseph McCrindle, 2009.031.001.