Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday 18th September 2022

First of all, apologies for possibly confusing you by writing about the wrong Gospel passage yesterday. Blame it on jet lag, but it was entirely my fault. Yesterday after Terce, the short office that’s followed by a long morning’s work, we sorted out and priced for sale the many things I’d brought out for the shop here, paid for from their own funds: medals, crucifixes and statues of St Benedict of all shapes and sizes, and vast amounts of perfumed Greek and Ethiopian incense, which has become very popular in Peru. These will be added to the many items they sell, which are produced by the monks, panettone, bread, smoothies, jams, fruit vinegars, altar wine and even olive oil. I find their hard work and enterprise quite overwhelming. Our photographs show some of the things for sale in the monastery shop.

Our Gospel today comes from Luke, (Lk 16: 1-13), and is the Parable of the Cunning Steward. Some people might say he was wise, others dishonest; he was all three perhaps. Jesus calls him wasteful, and later on dishonest in his astuteness. Jesus wants his disciples to behave justly and honestly and to put God first rather than the wealth of this world, to store up treasure in heaven, as he says elsewhere. (Mt 6: 19-21). In fact, “no servant can be the slave of two masters, God and money,” and yet as money has to be used, let it be used for good and especially for the needs of the poor. There’s is, of course, another way of reading that parable, as essentially the parables are about Jesus and the coming of God’s reign among us. Jesus is that steward who readjusts our debts before the Father by his Death and Resurrection, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. And for that, let us give praise and thanksgiving. Amen.