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.)