Reflection for Friday November 10, Memorial of Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church: Luke 16:1-8

Gospel: Luke 16:1-8

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.”

+ + + + +  + +

Reflection:

Why was the steward removed from his position as the fund manager of his master? Because he became complacent and negligent in his job. Otherwise if he did his job well he would have not been removed but he became complacent.

On the surface it may seem that the only issue here is the incompetence of the steward. But in a deeper sense there is a lesson that we could all learn from the steward. When he learned that he was to be removed fear suddenly set in on him. He was worried about his future for the reason that he would be without a job.

Therefore to ingrain a debt of gratitude from his debtors and to assure his survival he collected their debts with a discount. With the fervent hope that they would take care of him when he is finally dismissed from his job.  On the first debtor he discounted fifthly and on the second he discounted twenty. Suddenly this complacent steward became very creative because what was at stake was his very survival.

We are also being reminded to be creative but not in assuring our survival in this world. For the simple reason that all that we have in this world are all temporary and passing. We are reminded to be creative in sharing our faith in Jesus most specially during this time wherein technology is very advance and available.

 Let us therefore creatively harness the many social media platforms that are available at our disposal to continuously share Jesus. For this will assure us of survival not in this world anymore but our survival after our lives in this world is over. - Marino J. Dasmarinas