Correspondence to Grace

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“For it is like a man going abroad, who called his servants and handed over his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his particular ability. Then he went on his journey.

“He who had received the five talents went and traded with them and gained five more. In like manner he who had received two gained two more. But he who had received the one went away and dug in the earth and hid his master's money” (Matt. 25:14-18).

Our Lord gives us very graphic examples in the Gospel. One lesson that could be taken from this particular story is how those to whom five talents were given, and two talents were given, corresponded to the graces God gave them.

This meditation is about corresponding to grace and generosity in that correspondence.

When Our Lord handed over is goods to them, He made an act of trust and confidence in them. They were His goods and He was entrusting them to their care.

This is a bit like the talents and the abilities that God gives us. Some of our talents are very obvious, things we’re aware that we can do, our physical capabilities, and also, the other capabilities. But very often there are many hidden talents.

Hidden talents that possibly will make themselves known in the course of time, but also hidden in the fact that we don't know that we have them. We don't realize that these things are talents: our sight, our hearing, our forelimbs, things we take for granted every day.

And also, all the hidden graces that God gives us every day of our life—to be able to do this, to be able to do that—graces from every Communion, every sacrament of Confession, graces from our spiritual reading, from our chat, from our Circle, from our retreat, fraternal correction, from all the means of formation; graces that we get from the example we see in the people we live with, the acts of virtue Our Lord lets us see.

There may be many other acts of virtue that we see, but it doesn't register. So, all the time, Our Lord has given us five talents. If we didn't have five talents we wouldn't be here.

Our Lord has given us an awful lot. “Those to whom much has been given, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48). Much will be expected.

For everything that God has given to us, He expects a certain return.

We often hear a lot about God's mercy, which is very true and relevant, but we don't hear much about God's justice. In justice, God will demand a return from all the things He's given to us.

Therefore, every day of our life we need to have a certain concern about our correspondence. Lord, give me the grace to be generous in my correspondence.

St. Paul says, “What have you that you have not received?” (1 Cor 4:7). Everything is a gift.

“And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one.” Not everybody got the same talents, but everybody got talents.

We're not told that there was somebody there who got no talents. So, none of us can say or try and have the excuse that ‘I wasn't there when they were giving out the talents.’

We all have certain abilities, graces, gifts. We have to try and discover those with the humility to see what we're good at. All of us are good at certain things and all are not so good at others.

Socrates says, “Know thyself.” Often we might think we're good at something, but that might not be the reality.

I brought a group of students not so long ago to sing, from a certain school, to sing for some elderly nuns, because they all told me they were very good singers.

The reality was that some of them were very good at playing the piano and very good at playing the violin. But unfortunately, they were not the wonderful singers they thought they were.

I asked the nuns, about this time last year, if they would like another concert sometime. And the answer I got from these 90-year-olds was next time.

So, they appreciated the music very much, but I'm afraid the voices left a little bit to be desired.

Some people may think they have a great voice, but they might not have a great voice. That's why often we need objective advice.

If you've seen the TV series Britain's Got Talent or American Idol, or these things where people audition to see if they can get on the show and some of them are told very bluntly that ‘you have the worst voice I've ever heard in my whole life.’

Then they're also filmed as they leave the theatre, and some of them are muttering under their breath saying, ‘That judge doesn't recognize talent when he sees it.’

All sorts of other very amusing statements are very revealing and can some kind show how people can sometimes have a very different opinion of their talents than maybe, the objective reality.

So, it’s a very good thing to have somebody tell us we have a certain talent. And if we have a certain talent, to demand from us.

You see all the great Kenyan athletes who win the Boston Marathon and the London Marathon—they all have coaches. The coaches are there demanding more from their charges because they know this person can do better.

They're there with a stopwatch. It's possible. Many world records have been broken because the coaches have been demanding. We all need somebody who's a bit demanding of us.

We need to be stretched to reach our full potential and discover what that full potential is.

So, if a lot is demanded of us, that's a very good sign. That's a sign of confidence, a sign of ability, a sign that objectively somebody sees that I can hack it and manage more.

Very often that person is God, demanding more from us.

Sometimes people might demand more from us when we don't feel like giving. We might say, ‘Oh, I'm tired. Oh, I don't need to go at full stretch all the time.’

Many of these athletes are running up a hill in Eldoret at 5:00 in the morning when it's raining, and they haven’t slept well last night—probably they all feel like that.

But they all end up breaking world records, winning the marathon. We only see them when they're breaking the tape at the final finish. We don't see them in those other moments when they're having a rough time.

Our Lord asks us to be generous in our correspondence to grace. If more is asked of us, usually it's because we can give more.

St. Josemaría used to have an aspiration he used to say: Siempre más, “always more” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 72; The Forge, Point 545).

We can always do more; we can always give more. We can always demand more from ourselves.

Throughout the course of our life, it's a very healthy thing to maintain that spirit of self-demand; not letting ourselves get off easy. St. Josemaría used to say, “Sometimes Josemaría is not happy with Josemaría.”

We see other moments when he talks about how he fools himself. ‘This morning I felt tired, I didn't feel like doing something, I didn't sleep well last night, but I told myself I'll rest this afternoon.’

He pushes himself in the morning to do more. Then the afternoon comes and he manages to fool himself into not taking a rest.

He says, ‘I won again. I defeated my laziness, my selfishness, and all those base tendencies that are there inside me. I conquered myself.’

It's a very good spirit of fight to have, to fight against that old person that's there within us, that doesn't want to be demanded from, that wants an easy, comfortable life.

He used to say that living for Jesus Christ means “to complicate our life.” Complicate our life for Jesus Christ (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 21; Christ Is Passing By, Point 19).

Lord, help me to learn how to be more generous.

Cardinal Sin, in Manila one time, was talking to priests. He said he was arriving from Rome one time, and he was coming in from the airport, and he saw a big billboard advertising animal feed. There was a hen and there was a pig. The two animals were discussing this new animal feed.

Mr. Pig was saying to Mrs. Hen, ‘You know, Mrs. Hen, you and I, we make a great contribution to society because, between your eggs and my bacon, we get the whole world going every morning. Where would the world be without us?’

Mr. Pig said to Mr. Hen, ‘But you know, it's a very interesting phenomenon. In your case, it's a contribution; in my case, it's a total commitment. The hen gives her egg but literally, the pig gives his bacon.’

In this, Cardinal Sin was getting the whole message for his homily to all his priests. You've come to make a total commitment, a total commitment to Christ. Give our bacon, spend ourselves, to hold nothing back.

When Our Lord gave the five talents, and the two talents, and the one, He was giving, we’re told, “to each according to his particular ability.”

Not everything is demanded from everybody. Not everything is expected from everybody. There are certain things we can manage and there are certain things we can't manage. But we're not the best judge of that.

God has given us each a role to play.

We can't all break the marathon record for two hours. That's just specific people. Elliot Kipchoge, and maybe somebody else will come along and make a new record.

That's not the pathway for all of us, thank God. But we are called along our pathway.

Each according to his specific abilities. God leads us along that pathway.

He gives us the gifts and the graces for the mission that He's given to us. That mission always entails holiness and apostolate.

To be holy with a canonizable holiness where God has placed me, and to do as much apostolate of friendship and confidence with as many people as I can in the environment and in the world where God has placed me.

It's part of our talents, and then we channel all of our talents in that direction. Our ability to use time well. Our ability to keep up with people, to keep the contact warm.

I was talking to somebody a couple of years ago who was involved in a residence in Europe.

Many of those who passed through that residence went off to very far-away places. Now, thirty years later, some of them are quite wealthy or well-to-do.

This person has kept up with them for over thirty years and is now getting a lot of donations for that particular residence—doing a lot of things with those material means.

There was a big gap between the time that they were in the residence and the time that they developed themselves professionally and were able to contribute a lot.

This person was asked, ‘What is the secret of your success?’

He said, ‘Keep the contact warm.’ These are very interesting words. Keep the contact warm.

One of the talents and abilities that God has given to all of us is the ability to keep the contact warm. Keep in contact with people. Remember their birthdays.

We have great instruments now which didn't exist thirty years ago, e-mail and WhatsApp and all these different things. These can be apostolic instruments.

Keep in touch with classmates. Get back in touch with primary school contacts or secondary school contacts. There's a whole world there.

Generous in our correspondence to the graces that God gives us to practice the apostolate of friendship and confidence, because we have a great message to give to people. Something very special. It's talent.

“He handed over his goods to them.” Spiritual goods and material goods. They were goods. They were treasures.

He believed in the specific ability of each one of these three servants to be able to handle those goods, to take care of them, to realize the treasures that they were, to see their value.

Lord, help me to know the value of things. The value of time. The value of opportunity. The value of formation. The value of the graces that God gives us.

Wonderful spiritual treasures. I may have mentioned before that on Saitoti Road there, there's a clock, and under the clock, there's a phrase that says, ‘Time is free, but it's priceless.”

It's not often along the road you pick up a phrase like that. ‘Time is free, but it's priceless.’

Some of our talents are given to us for free, but they're priceless. Hidden treasures that are worth so much.

Thank you, Lord, for the treasures you've placed in my soul, in my heart, with my Christian vocation, with all the other gems of formation that you give me, and all the opportunities.

Help me have this attitude of desire to use them very well; not to waste any of the opportunities and the talents that you've given to me, to take very good care of them.

We've heard the story of the farmer who used to grow very good maize.

Every year, he would win the local competition for the best maize in the whole area. Every year when he won the competition, he would give some of the seeds of his best maize to all of his neighbors.

Somebody asked him, “Why do you give all these best seeds of your best maize to your neighbors? Is that not diminishing your possibilities of having the best maize?”

He said, “No, I try to help my neighbors grow good maize because when the wind blows, the wind will blow some of those seeds onto my land. And because those seeds are the best seeds, that maintains the standard of my maize.

“If I was to let all my neighbors sow an inferior quality maize and their seeds got blown onto my land, that would diminish the quality of my maize.” So, this is one of the secrets of growing good corn.

We grow in our holiness and virtue by helping everybody around us grow in virtue: fraternal correction, example, prayer, apostolate.

“Then he went away on his journey.” This was real trust and confidence that he placed in his charges that he had.

He went far away. We're not told that he was close by and was checking every day on how they were doing and making sure that nothing got wasted. No, he went far away on his journey. There's trust, there's confidence.

An awful lot is left to us, to our personal correspondence, to how we approach the game, how we approach the race. We're left to our abilities.

There's an invitation to responsibility there.

I have to learn how to function, how to think, how to dream, how to work with the mentality of a manager, with the mentality of somebody in charge.

It's my responsibility because someday I'm going to have to give an account of what I'm asked to do. Somebody's going to check on my work or see if this thing has been done okay.

They're going to look at the results; they're not going to look at me every minute and see how I'm doing this and how I'm doing that. A lot is left up to my own personal initiative.

Those are two very beautiful words in the vocabulary of a member of Opus Dei or any member of the Church: initiative and responsibility.

To think with the mentality of the person in charge, which ultimately is to think with the mind or the mentality of God. What does God want from me?

Help me to put my whole heart and mind into this job. Sometimes you can come across people who do a slip-shod job.

They sort of don't care. You go into a shop, and you can see that they have a sort of ‘I only work here’ type of attitude and they really don't care about the customer.

But it's also very noticeable when you go into a shop and somebody has a service mentality or a service orientation.

How can I help you? What can I do for you? How can I get this particular thing that you're looking for?

You see it immediately. This person is interested in their job. They're trying to be good at what they're trying to do.

Our formation has to lead us to want to be good at what we're doing, which means we're open to learn. We're open to being corrected. We're open to being taught.

Because we're not born knowing these things, we can learn better ways of doing things, better ways of saying things, more efficient ways of fulfilling the tasks we have in hand.

And that means we have to be open to change, open to learn, and very grateful to people who teach us new things, because all the time we're developing ourselves. It's a lovely word, “development.”

The Catholic Church in her documents talks a lot about authentic development. We're interested in the authentic development of society itself.

Other organizations talk about development, but they can use all sorts of means that are immoral or unjust and don't lead to true development. They lead to a pseudo-development.

We're interested in our development of our personality, of our abilities, in all possible means, because God is looking for the return of those five talents. Someday He wants to be able to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Because you've been faithful in little things, I have greater things to commit to your charge” (Matt. 15:21).

“And he who received the five talents went and traded with them” (Matt. 15:20).

This person was aware that he had five talents. He wasn't aware that he had three and a half. He didn't just trade with two of them.

He didn't just say, ‘It's easy for me to do something with these three, but I'm not too sure about the other two.’

Or, ‘I'm not happy about the other two. I'll just bury the other two. I won't put too much effort there.’ Some of the talents required much effort, and some were very easy, and he chose the easy way.

But Our Lord says, “Enter by the narrow gate” (Matt. 7:13). Choose the difficult pathway. Some of those talents might be a bit more challenging to develop.

But Our Lord wants us to develop the five talents, not two and a half, or three, or what's comfortable, or what's easy, or what doesn't cost an effort. We have to work on those five talents.

I was sent a WhatsApp this morning, from a sister of mine advertising a new type of coffee made somewhere in the world. It's called the Heroic Minute Blend.

It’s somehow linked up with the St. Josemaría Institute. What an interesting title for a coffee: the Heroic Minute Blend.

Some of our talents are tied up with that heroic minute, and possibly we don't have a Heroic Minute Blend to help us on our way. But at the same time, we have a talent to be able to develop that.

The person who developed that blend and put that name on it was developing their talent for marketing things. Possibly 92,000 people all over the world have an interest in knowing about the Heroic Minute Blend, and possibly buying the Heroic Minute Blend.

This is an initiative to make money out of all sorts of ways that we can make money. That's also a talent we've received to help the corporate apostolic works, to think out of the box, to have initiative, to have an entrepreneurial spirit. All sorts of things.

Lord, give me ideas. Help me to think.

As you know, there is a soft drink in this country, a soda called Alvaro. That came out, I think, just before the canonization of St. Josemaría.

Somebody had the bright idea of bringing a number of bottles of Alvaro to the ceremony of the canonization of St. Josemaría. It was an instant success.

They sold quite a number of bottles immediately to people from all over the world and brought us a memento of the canonization: this bottle of Alvaro.

Well, that was initiative. Thinking out of the box, making money in all sorts of ways.

“The one who received the five talents went and traded with them”—used his ingenuity.

What can I do? What can I contribute? How can I make each one of these talents yield an abundant harvest?

He was thinking out of the box. He was using all that time to think in different ways, making hay while the sun shined; helping each one of those talents also to yield not just some sort of return, but to yield the best return.

Our Father wants each one of us to be a good businessperson.

Once, our Father said, “Some of my regional vicar’s sons are very good businessmen.” Interesting comment. They know how to get the best value out of the things they have; how to work with what they have: conference centers, Centers here, Centers there, schools, universities.

How to get a great yield, maybe in difficult circumstances or environments. Our Father wants us to have that mentality of a good businessperson—how to get the best yield from what we have, how to see new business possibilities for the enterprise we are involved in, of holiness and the apostolate. We are spreading good things around the world.

I was listening last night to a bioethics seminar organized by Strathmore University and Fanusi Study Centre. It's very much directed internationally, all over the world. Spread good ideas.

About a hundred people attended. You see, in the midst of a pandemic, we discovered a way of communicating through Zoom sessions. We see that we can link up with people in all countries, maybe students in all sorts of places.

So, we have an opportunity to spread good ideas. I have a personal dream that Nairobi will become a hub for good ideas—spread things all over the world—because there are many places in the world where young people are not hearing good ideas.

We have a great setup here. And with Zoom, we can spread those things in so many places.

Our Father said one of our “dominant passions” has to be to spread doctrine (Javier Echevarría, Letter from the Prelate, June 3, 2016). So, we think out of the box of new ways to spread doctrine.

Spread ideas. Whether it's with a new blend of coffee or whether it's a Zoom seminar or webinar or all sorts of other things. That's up to us.

But maybe someday in the course of our life, God will give us an idea.

Somebody said that one of the strongest things in the world is “an idea whose time has come” (Victor Hugo, The Future of Man). The Heroic Minute Blend comes from an idea, and here we are talking about a new idea.

We don't know where that idea came from, but it came from somewhere. Somebody was thinking, somebody who had an idea. Going to go around the world as people wake up this morning to this new idea.

So, we trade it with them. Lord, teach me to trade.

Trade, to look at each of the talents you've given to me. See how I can use this, how I can use that, how I can absorb our spirit and help it yield a rich harvest through my correspondence.

Because we don't know also the fruits that God is expecting from our correspondence, the souls He's going to bring us in contact with—maybe a soul that's going to change the world or going to produce a new idea or a new blend of coffee.

That will make an awful lot of money to support corporate apostolic work. Or some other little thing. It can have a big impact. Lord, God gives us those ideas. Help us to think.

Or, from the way that we use a certain machine, we'll get an idea of how this machine could be improved or could be better. We'll patent that idea and do an awful lot of good with it around the world. We never know.

“In like manner, he who would receive two, gained two more” (cf. Matt. 25:22).

The person with two didn't say, ‘Oh, I only have two. I didn't get five. It's not fair.’

No, they were focused on yielding the fruit of those two. They weren't bothered about comparisons.

I don't have a wonderful voice. Or, I can't sing like Julie Andrews or Pavarotti or somebody. And then go off to a corner and cry.

The one who would receive two took the baton and ran with it. I have these two talents. This is a treasure.

Optimism, enthusiasm, dynamism. Go, do things, get involved. Make an impact, have an influence, have a splash.

God has given me these abilities. This is the race He wants me to run in. I've got to run and break the record, and win in the best way that I can, with a great joy and happiness in working on these talents.

This is what my life is all about. Life is wonderful. Every get-together is wonderful. Every day is an opportunity. Every hour is time.

I have this time, this opportunity. It's not going to come again. And this Master has had an enormous trust in me.

God has placed great trust in each one of us. He could have trusted others. He could have chosen others.

But He chose and trusted each of us. It's a great privilege — a great privilege to be chosen.

Therefore, that has to evoke a great spirit of gratitude, and we show our gratitude with deeds.

As always, Our Lady is a model for us in her generosity and correspondence to grace.

She “went with haste into the hill country” (Luke 1:39). She didn't dilly-dally.

She didn't say, ‘I’ll think about it. Maybe I'll go, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll go in six months. Or maybe I'll ask everybody's opinion.’

“In those days.” Very quickly, she saw the will of God and she put her whole heart and soul into fulfilling that will of God. “She went with haste into the hill country.”

Our Lady communicates great sense of urgency to everything we must do —generosity and correspondence to grace, because God has given me five talents.

Mary, may you help me respond to grace in the same way you did.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

RK