The parable that we have just heard is very dear to St Benedict. He was all in favour of candidates for the monastic life who heard a command and instantly set about the job. Currendo et agendo. Speeding into activity. Enthusiastic people. It is not simply obedience, prompt obedience, that St Benedict cultivates in his monks, but gratitude to God for the gifts with which he has endowed us. They are there to be used, so that God may be glorified in all things.
St Benedict is quite clear that if we really do look alive and set about using our gifts of grace and of nature, we shall see changes in ourselves. While we are energetically serving the community and doing our best in our various offices God is at work in us. Love of God being our motive, we will be growing in love. Living according to our vows of obedience, conversion of life and stability is the great highway to holiness. The monastery is the workshop in which we ply these tools of our trade. We are to do so in humility, recognising that it is by God’s gift and in obedience to the Abbot that we set to work. Should our attitude to our work change and anyone gets a big idea of himself he has to be taken off his job, otherwise pride will corrupt him, and he will cease to be a monk.
St Paul teaches us that we receive the Holy Spirit so that we may recognise the gifts God has given us. The Holy Spirit, who is himself the Gift of God Most High, shows us what we are in ourselves, left to ourselves. Something I would rather not see. All our dignity, our glory, comes from the endowments of grace and nature: to be aware of all that God has done and is doing for us, and so what he enables us to do for him and for the brethren is our joy now and above all in eternity.
In this parable of the talents Our Lord invites us to shun sloth and pusillanimity. We are to be courageous and strong. While we are encouraged to submit our initiatives to obedience, we are to be energetic and persevering in doing what is decided, so may we hear the Lord’s invitation on the last Day: “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.”