Prudential Investments: Homily for the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

All too often we come across portions of the Gospel, like this verse from today’s Gospel, that don’t seem to make sense. For example, in the parable that precedes this verse, it appears that Our Lord is commending the “dishonest steward!” So what do we do here? Are we to understand that Our Lord is encouraging us to be dishonest cheats?

Unlikely, since what Our Lord is recommending is the virtue of prudence. In mundane thought prudence is seen as that reason which is strategic, keeps us safe, and out of trouble. In Catholic teaching, prudence is the auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure of our choices; the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it. Our true good, of course, lies in our choosing those paths that will get us to heaven, and cultivating the virtue of prudence makes sure that our every decision will be directed towards that heavenly goal.

So, let us return then to the complicated Gospel message we have today. Part of the mystery can be resolved if we take a close look at the Gospel. There is no evidence to suggest that the steward is, in fact, guilty of any wrongdoing. He has only been accused, and this accusation has not been proved true. Indeed, the master in the Gospel seems to be unjustly acting on untrue accusations.

Similarly, we should not assume that, when he asks the debtors to write smaller amounts, the steward is shortchanging his master. Some commentators suggest that the steward may have well been giving up his legitimate commission, so that the master regained his principal amount. And this, my dear brothers and sisters, is what Our Lord means when he says “make friends with dishonest wealth;” act prudentially with the wealth of the world, use your money for greater things, like storing up treasures for yourself in heaven rather than in this world alone. For the wealth of the world, dear brothers and sisters, is nearly always tainted. Even if we work honestly, it is tainted by the fact that we may work honestly, for dishonest employers, or cruel states.

This fact of tainted money, and the dilemma of what to do with it, is something that I encountered in my days of secular activism. “How can we take dirty money” we left-leaning activists would ask each other. And indeed, how could we? For our taking of this money would compromise us. There is no way we can build a utopia – and this is the dream of the secular activist – with tainted money.

Fortunately, as Christians, we do not have to worry about building utopia. That task is, happily, the Lord’s! Our Lord is suggesting to us merely that the wealth of this world is to be used prudentially, that is trusting in His promise of eternal life to pave the road to heaven, the “eternal dwellings” of the Gospel.

And so, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what should we be spending the dishonest wealth of this world on? The Catholic Church has been doing this for some millennia, which is, to take the wealth of this world, turn it toward the use of the liturgy, and to the use of almsgiving.

Last week, on the feast of St. John Chrysostom, I reflected on some of the saint’s words:

I am not saying you should not give golden altar vessels and so on, but I am insisting that nothing can take the place of almsgiving.

Using these words I highlighted that the Catholic way is often not either-or, but both-and. In other words, a healthy Catholicism does not focus either on almsgiving, or exclusively on spectacular liturgies. Rather, it focuses on both, reverent, respectful liturgies that are reflections of the divine beauty, and a strong focus on almsgiving.

There is a line from the film Hello Dolly (1969), which never gets old. In the film, the protagonist – Ms. Dolly Levi – shares with the object of her attention, Mr. Horace Vandergelder, her opinion that “Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.” Our Lord would have approved, dear brothers and sisters. This is the prudential use of the tainted wealth of this world: almsgiving, the support of the young and the marginalized, and the support of the Church and its liturgy. 

And if you do not trust me, my dear brothers and sisters, trust in the words of the Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmino, whose feast we recently celebrated:

Realise that you have been created for the glory of God and for your own eternal salvation; this is your end, this is the object of your soul and the treasure of your heart. You will be blessed if you reach this goal, but miserable if you are cut off from it.

Therefore consider that to be for your real good which brings you to your goal, and that to be really bad which cuts you off from this goal. Prosperity and adversity, riches and poverty, health and sickness, honor and ignominy, life and death should not be sought after for themselves by the wise man nor are they to be avoided for themselves: if they contribute to the glory of God and your eternal happiness, they are good and to be sought after; if they are obstacles to this, they are evil and to be avoided.

May God bless you!

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful gathered for the anticipatory Sunday Mass in the Royal Chapel of St. Anthony on 20 Sept 2025.)

(Image reference: Parable of the unjust steward, Marinus van Reymerswaele, c,1540, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.)

Homily for the Missionary Families for Christ National Singles Meet - Feast of St. John Chrysostom

Today we celebrate the feast, the memorial, of St. John Chrysostum, Bishop and Doctor of our Holy Church. The word Chrysostum comes from the word Chrysostomos, "golden-mouthed." St. John was so called because of his eloquence. I pray that some of his eloquence may be mine this afternoon, as I meditate on the sacred scripture we have just read, and our tradition.

There is one particular verse from St. John’s many homilies that I have read and has stayed with me, which I would like to share with you.

God has no need of golden vessels but of golden hearts. I am not saying you should not give golden altar vessels and so on, but I am insisting that nothing can take the place of almsgiving. The Lord will not refuse to accept the first kind of gift but he prefers the second, and quite naturally, because in the first case only the donor benefits, in the second case the poor gets the benefit. The gift of a chalice may be ostentatious; almsgiving is pure benevolence.

My dear brothers and sisters, we – especially we in India – are not unfamiliar with the suggestion that we must first take care of the poor, and that we should not spend money on ritual ostentation. And St. John seems to be saying the same thing! But is he? I don’t think so, because you see, the Catholic way is not one way or the other, but often both. And so, listen to this sentence from St. John again:

I am not saying you should not give golden altar vessels and so on, but I am insisting that nothing can take the place of almsgiving.

In other words, almsgiving is fundamental, but golden altar vessels are also important. In other words, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we must start taking the liturgy seriously. What are the objects we use for worship? Are they worthy of being present before God, or not? One often sees cheap synthetic materials on the altar, steel vessels, instead of silks, cottons, linens, silver and gold. Surprisingly, however, our own bodies have no such aversion to simplicity!

In fact, a desire for a noble liturgy, could well be a form of almsgiving! The crafting of fine products for worship, must often rely not on simply going to a shop and picking up something. Rather, it involves creating a relationship between a designer, a patron, and at least one artisan. Through investing our liturgy with riches, as was done in the old days, we – especially those of us in India – may well be aiding the livelihoods of artisans in need of support.

The liturgy, my dear brothers and sisters, should be the most important thing for a Catholic, for it resolves around the Eucharist, the source and summit of the Christian life. Make our lives liturgically centered, and we will start rearticulating our entire lives! We will treat people with the same respect that we use for the Eucharist, recognizing in them the unseen Christ.

Speaking of the unseen Christ, you should know that Our Lord manifested Himself in this very space. This church of the Holy Cross is so-called because of a miracle where Our Lord appeared on a cross, which caused the cross to grow! In the Cathedral of this Archdiocese we celebrate a Triduum of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross to venerate the Holy Cross of Christ which is now in the cathedral. Brothers and sisters in Christ, Our Lord calls you, not just to take up your cross and to follow Him, but to proclaim His cross with your lips and your actions! St. John Chrysostum, whose feast we celebrate today, was called golden-mouthed because of his eloquence. I pray that the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ may similarly shine on your lips, and the members of your bodies, and that the radiance of the Cross, through you, may draw more to Christ.

St. John Chrysostom, pray for us.

(This homily was preached on Saturday 13^th Sept. 2025 at the Church of the Cruz dos Milagres, Old Goa.)

(image reference:Crucifixion, anonymous author, mid 13^th cent., Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai.)

Ave Crux Spes Unica: Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Today is a doubly auspicious day, for not only is it the day of the Lord, but we also have the privilege of being able to celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on a Sunday, which happens once in about seven years. This feast originates from the time when the relic of the true Cross – discovered by St. Helen, mother of the emperor Constantine – was first exposed for veneration in 335 A.D. in front of the newly constructed church of the Holy Sepulcher.

This is the historical context of this feast, but how do we exalt the Cross, and why should we?

My dear brothers and sister, the ancient Fathers of the Church loved Our Lord, and the Cross, so much that when they read the Old Testament, they looked everywhere in it for a prefiguring of Our Lord, and in some cases, His Cross. Before I move on, let us pause and think for a second, they looked for Our Lord and His Cross everywhere! If only our hearts and eyes were filled with such fire my dear brothers and sisters.

It is because the Fathers read the scriptures with this eye, and of course, because Our Lord himself made the analogy, that we read about the episode of the bronze serpent on the cross raised by Moses, from the book of Numbers.

"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

But why a serpent? Is the dying, or dead, body of Our Lord to be compared to that of a serpent? The answer in someways, is yes! Listen to St. Paul in the second letter to the Corinthians (5: 21):

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The human body, after the Fall, the same fall engineered by the ancient serpent, is sinful. This is not say that there is no good in our bodies, but that it is also the storehouse of much that is ill.

What was nailed to the cross, therefore, was not just the body of Our Lord. It was also our sinful nature, tied to this flesh, that was nailed to the cross. We were rescued from the second, spiritual, death because even in pain, when temptation is greatest, Our Lord resisted temptation, and triumphed. In so doing, He, “who knew no sin”, and who willingly took on sinful human nature, but did not sin, also ensured that it was human nature that triumphed with Him.

It is through the death of this man on the cross that we know that there is life after death, and we know how to resist temptation, why we must resist temptation, and to what end to put suffering, which is the product of sin. Accept suffering, embrace the cross and we will triumph with Christ.

Listen to the exultation of St. Gregory Nazianzus, the first two sentences of which we often hear at Easter time:

O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? You are overthrown by the cross. You are slain by him who is the giver of life. You are without breath, dead, without motion, even though you keep the form of a serpent lifted up high on a pole.

As Saint Bede, patron of the seminary I was sent to, teaches;

Because death was from a serpent, it was represented by the brazen image of a serpent in the account in Numbers.

In other words, what was nailed to the cross was not just a sinful body, and human nature, but death! The snake represents the reign of the serpent, the Evil one, who introduced death into the world. His eventual death, through the cross, is foretold, through this episode in the book of Numbers and realized eventually by the sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross.

And so, the Cross does not exist for its own sake, as a pretty marker of our sect. But, as in the words of St. Andrew of Crete:

It is raised, not to receive glory (for with Christ nailed to it what greater glory could it have?) but to give glory to God who is worshiped on it and proclaimed by it.

So should it be with our lives, where we not just embrace the cross, but seek it, desire it, and love it, accepting our suffering because as in the words of St. Andrew the apostle, it is the cross which will carry us; no (!), restore us, to our maker.

O Bona Crux (O Good Cross), made beautiful by the body of the Lord, long have I desired thee, ardently have I loved thee, unceasingly have I sought thee, and now thou art ready for my eager soul. Receive me from among men and restore me to my Master, so that He, who redeemed me through thee, shalt receive me through thee. Amen.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful gathered at the Royal Chapel of St. Anthony, Old Goa, on 14 Sep 2025.)

(Image reference: Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Luigi Gregori, late 1870s, Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame, Indiana.)