Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

Dearly beloved,

In monastic literature, there is an interesting story related to today’s Gospel, concerning Stephen the hermit. Stephen lived forty years in monastic life, most of it alone, but towards the end of his life, he accepted two young monks, to instruct them in virtue, as well as have someone to help him in his old age. At some point he fell very ill and his death was near at end. On the day before he died, his disciples heard him speaking to some unseen person. “As if he were being called to account by someone, he said, ‘Yes, indeed, that is true, but that is why I fasted for so many years.’ And then again: ‘Yes, it is quite true, but I wept and served the brethren.’ … And sometimes he would say, ‘Yes, it is true; I do not know what to say to this. But in God there is mercy.’” The devil was accusing Stephen on his death bed: to some things, he could answer with the penance he did on that account; in others, where life did not give space to do penance, he appealed to divine mercy.

Today’s Gospel, the parable of the unjust steward, is about a man who was given responsibility by his master, misused his goods, and then scrambled to find a way to avoid utter ruin. Although it may seem a stretch, the story of Stephen the hermit is similar. Stephen was given many graces by God, and yet he also sinned often and wasted those graces, and sometimes he was lazy and negligent. All this amounted to ‘squandering the possessions’ of his master, who was God. We have a similar story: we have been given the faith, received grace in baptism and the other sacraments, instructed in our religion. And what is more, at a time when many in the Church have abandoned true doctrine and traditional worship, we are privileged to partake of these treasures of the Church whenever we wish. And yet, we often waste these graces and blessings on sin and our passions; we waste time on worldly things when we could have prayed or studied; we never do enough penance to make up for our sins. And so the Lord could rightly appear to us today and say, ‘What is this that I hear of you? Make an accounting of your stewardship, for you can be steward no longer.’ You have wasted my divine graces for long enough; time to prepare for punishment.

The point of today’s parable is that this is the situation for all of us. We may be sincere and diligent when it comes to our religion, but each of us fails many times a day, and in the course of lifetime, this amounts to a lot of goods wasted. Since we will never be able to justify ourselves in the sight of God, Jesus instructs us to develop friendship with other human beings to ensure our reception into eternal dwellings, the life of heaven.

For the Fathers, this parable refers to the duty to take care of the poor—to take the mammon of iniquity, our money and goods, and bestow them on others who have greater need. By this generosity, we make friends with the poor who, if they have divine faith, will welcome us into heaven on account of the good we have done for them. In our day, in a society in which many lack faith, it is also the case that many poor lack faith in God; in those cases, St. Ambrose says, ‘by giving to the poor we purchase the favor of the angels and the saints’ who will aid us in our spiritual need.

I would argue, however, that the details of this odd parable fit best with the relationship between the Church militant, here on earth, and the Church suffering, the souls in purgatory. They owe the Lord a certain amount of debt for their sins; we can change their bill due to our own works on their behalf; and then, when they go to heaven, based partly or entirely on our generosity towards them, they will earnestly beg God to allow us to join them for eternity. By helping the holy souls, we receive praise from the Lord because we know that we are going to fail and that we have wasted his gifts, but we come up with another plan to aid our salvation, one which he approves of and has, in fact, designed.

When we die, we lose any ability to merit or demerit, to gain favor or disfavor with God; upon death, our destination is fixed. If we are repentant sinners and we did adequate penance on earth, we go straight to heaven. If we are repentant sinners but did not do enough penance to match our sins, then we go to purgatory, and pay off the debt of punishment there. Since we cannot gain anything extra to speed up the process once we have died, our purification in purgatory is painful and slow. But persons on earth can still merit for us, and so if they choose, they can do works for us, give us the merit, and benefit us, paying off our debt either partially or entirely. Since we all know, or should know, that we’ll never do enough penance to make up for our many sins and negligences since we have so many sins and so little time or motivation to do so, we should foster devotion to the souls in purgatory, striving to earn indulgences for them so that they will reach heaven and one day welcome us there. This means making some regular commitment to earn the indulgences offered to us by the Church. There are two degrees of indulgence: plenary and partial. Plenary indulgences take away the full debt a soul owes to God; partial indulgences take away part of the debt based upon the fervor of the person performing it. Our goal should be to earn plenary indulgences, since if we miss the mark, at least we earn a partial indulgence if we do the work involved.

Each plenary indulgence has four key parts: the work, Communion, confession, and prayer for the Pope. The work is the action authorized by the Church to function as an indulgenced action. Communion must be made the same day as the work is performed, together with prayer for the Pope. Confession should be made soon before or after the work, but at least within three weeks. Since putting together these four things is difficult to accomplish for most of you, the most reasonable time to do so is on Sunday, since you must attend Mass anyway. And there are four works that are easily within reach for those who have little time to give.

First, the recitation of the rosary in a group; this includes the recitation of the rosary at home, as long as it is said out loud, together. Second, reading or listening to Scripture for 30 minutes; this also can be done as a family, alternating readers. The third and fourth options must both be done in church: adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for 30 minutes, or making the Stations of the Cross. The benefit of each of these four works is that they are quite possible, and they require 30 minutes at the most. Once the work is done, pray an Our Father and Hail Mary for the Pope; then offer it all to God in union with your Communion that day and your most recent confession, with the intention of helping a soul in purgatory.

One important final note is that in order for the indulgence gained to be plenary, that is, to free a soul in purgatory from all debt for sin, besides the four components, the one doing the work must be wholly detached from sin. So, while we are performing the work, whether the family rosary, reading or listening to Scripture for half an hour, the Stations or 30 minutes of adoration, we should take care to fight off sinful thoughts and feelings so as to offer it as worthily as possible. Though this stipulation makes earning an indulgence more difficult, it also makes it easier, because we are forced to be more attentive and to let go of less important things; instead of being irritated by others as we pray or giving into temptation to think about worldly things, we must draw ourselves back to the work of charity if we wish it to be fully effective.

With the Church militant in such disarray and many not fighting in very clear battle lines, it is a good time to turn to the Church suffering. Our modest but purposeful works of prayer and sacrifice can aid them greatly, and that aid is sure to win for us reliable and tenacious friends in heaven. Since it is certain we will fail in this life, how prudent it is to choose friends who will never fail us and who will gladly return the debt they owe us! In the story of Stephen the hermit, he had to answer for himself; but if we have worked hard for the souls in purgatory, it is they who will answer on our behalf. The Lord will praise us for being children of light, and for being prudent in helping the holy souls. And all the redeemed will praise the Lord for his justice and mercy and wisdom, unto the ages of ages, in the New Jerusalem.