A Reflection for Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
“Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” (Lk 12:48)
This semester, I’ve been teaching a course on gender and writing, using the work of the feminist scholar Audre Lorde as one of the main texts. Lorde, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in her early fifties, died from the disease at 58. In her book The Cancer Journals, Lorde wrote, “what is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?”
People like Lorde, so brilliant and overflowing with life force, are tasked with much. When their lives are prematurely cut short, revisiting their work leads us to think about what else they might have given us had their lifespans been longer. But that’s the reminder of today’s readings: give of yourself now, because you don’t know what’s coming. “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” Jesus is speaking here of our attachment to money and things, but he’s also speaking about anything we might hoard: our love, intelligence, empathy, compassion and care.
Truly gifted people, those whose spirits, intellects and talents tower above those of everyone around them, are expected to do more and give more of themselves for the sake of others.
Truly gifted people, those whose spirits, intellects and talents tower above those of everyone around them, are expected to do more and give more of themselves for the sake of others. Jesus is our model for this. So was Paul, “the very least of all these holy ones,” but still a person who gave everything he could.
It would be perfectly understandable if the most brilliant among us, when diagnosed with a terminal illness, simply gave up. But Audre Lorde did not. She kept writing and teaching to the end of her life. “Who can have power over me again?” she asks, as someone who has looked death in the face. So we, too, keep watch, aware that things can change in an instant. But that doesn’t mean we should cravenly hoard what we might give to the world. We’re asked for much. So why not give much?
From astronomy, we learn that when a star dies, it becomes a nova, and its light can shine for years, decades, or even millennia. That is its gift, to us.
