NOTES for Mat 25:14-30

Some Christians torment themselves trying to understand what their talent is, afraid that they might accidentally bury it in the ground. Others take offense at God for giving them gifts that are too small. But if we look carefully at the lives of the saints, we find that during their earthly lives they often suffered most precisely because of what was central to their holiness. A saint is someone who succeeds better than others at imitating God, someone who resembles Him more closely. Clearly, God gives talents to the saints, yet there are not many artists and musicians of genius among them. Does this mean that by “talent” we understand the wrong thing? The saints do, however, imitate Christ in His sufferings and help Him carry the Cross. Could this be the explanation? We often do not understand what Cross we are meant to take up. Could the Cross and the talent be one and the same? It would then be clear that our talent is that through which we have to suffer most. And it would be clear that the greater the talent, the greater the responsibility and the suffering—and therefore the greater the reward.