Category: Dajczer, Fr. Tadeusz

Continuing from The Gift of Faith:

Only a person who has faith is able to be grateful for everything.  This gratitude will be visible on your face as joy; for everything may be changed into good.  This reflection about talents refers to the teaching of St. Paul and to the famous thesis of St. Augustine: ‘For the ones who love God, all things work for good, even sin’ (Rom 8:28).  Therefore, even a fall, which is a great misfortune, can be an opportunity within which is hidden some kind of talent given to you in that situation, from which you can profit.  You only need your faith or your conversion towards such faith which will enable you to look through the eyes of Jesus.

Thinking along these lines can be transformational.  I can’t help but think of a quote of Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity: “Everything that happens is for me a message of the excessive love of God for my soul.”  And as Amy Carmichael would say: “Everything means everything.”  There’s a lot to be meditated on in just the word “excessive” . . .  I can remember many times when I’ve said this quote out loud to myself in the midst of something that didn’t feel like His excessive love.  Sometimes it’s big things–like being elected superior–but most of the time it’s little things, like those interruptions that I don’t like or changes of plans.  (You can see where my self-centeredness lies . . .)   Yet if I can just remember that my self-centeredness is indeed also a “talent” . . .

Continuing from Gift of Faith:
(Part 1 was posted yesterday . . .)

If certain situations make you feel tense, it means that your talent is hidden within them, as if a diamond were buried beneath the ashes.  What do you do with it?  How do you make use of it?  Everything is meant to serve towards your sanctification.  In this sense, everything is grace.  Suffering, which overwhelms you or other unfavourable circumstances, is a whole mess of talents.  We, however, are often like blind people or like children who understand very little.  It is only when we stand before God that everything will be made clear to us.  Then we will see the ocean of talents in which we have been immersed.
     There are two kinds of talents: those that are less precious and those that are more precious.  If you are successful, if something comes out right for you–this is certainly a talent.  If however, nothings turns out right–this is a more precious talent.  Failures are the priceless treasures given to you in your life. Just like the master in the Gospel who returned from his travels and demanded an account from his servants, God will someday ask you, how did you make use of your personal failures, which He gave you as an opportunity, as a talent.  Sometimes there are many failures in your life–do you make use of them?

     The parable of the talents is an evangelical call to conversion.  You have to start looking at your life differently; you must look at it with the eyes of faith.  Then you will see God’s endless giving of grace; you will see your whole life as a multitude of hidden chances for continual inner transformation.  You will come to know that everything is grace.  It seems that God, granting you difficult graces, is forcing His gifts into your hands, but you resist and do not want to accept them. Yet, difficult graces are the most valuable talents of your life. Sometimes there are many of them because God wants you to have enough talents to make use of.

To be continued . . .

I am rereading Fr. Dajczer’s book, The Gift of Faith–which I cannot recommend highly enough.  When I first read his take on the parable of the talents it caused a major paradigm shift in my thinking, so I thought I would share him with you over the next few days.  He prefaces his comments on the parable with a discussion of the nature of faith: faith is the ability to see everything with God’s eyes–“Every moment of our lives is permeated with the Presence that loves and bestows.  To live in faith means to be able to see this loving and constantly bestowing Presence.” 

So, on to the parable of the talents:

God waits for us to look with the eyes of faith at all the experiences we live through, especially the difficult ones.  In the parable of the talents, Jesus warns us not to close ourselves off from coming to know Him through faith and not to be slothful in using all things which God is continuously giving us. . . . A talent is a gift and material, but at the same time an opportunity.  Christ , in giving you a talent, trusts you and waits for you to take proper advantage of it.  If He has given you certain abilities, then He is not indifferent as to what you do with them.  And if, however, you did not receive these abilities–this is also a talent.  A talent is not only receiving something, but it is also lacking something.
     In the light of faith, the good health you have is a talent, but bad health is also a talent.  Jesus in each case asks the question.  What are you doing with this talent?  You can equally waste good health, and even more so, you can waste the lack of health.  …
     It is a talent, for example, if you are unable to pray; yet you consider this a misfortune.  It is important what you do with this inability to pray.  Maybe you have buried this talent and you say to yourself: well, I will not pray.  But you can gain so much from it.  The inability to pray should intensify your hunger for God, and thereby it can become a means contributing to your sanctification.
     The same thing applies when you have problems at home, when the family is quarreling, this also is your talent and an opportunity given to you by God.  What can you do with it?  If you break down, and are discouraged, then you bury it in the ground.  It is not possible for a person of faith not to see the deeper meaning of his own experiences.  The very search of the deeper understanding of personal experiences is to profit from the talent.  If you experience fear, for example, you fear suffering or death–this is also an opportunity offered to you. . . .

To be continued . . .