My dear brethren, there will come to each one of us a day when all those earthly goods we now enjoy shall fail us, when we shall have to turn our backs on the world and all that it has to give us, and prepare ourselves to stand before him to whom all things that we had and enjoyed belong, and give an account to him of the uses which we have made of them. We have, like the steward in to-day's Gospel, a Lord and Master; and to him we must sooner or later give an account of our stewardship.
And it is only too likely, we may say it is indeed certain, that when that dread moment comes at which this world must be left behind, the charge will also be made against us, as against the steward in this parable, that we have wasted our Master's goods. Our consciences will rise up and condemn us, and anticipate the accusation which shall be brought against us when we shall actually come face to face with God. Then all the security we have had in the thought that we are not murderers, robbers, or adulterers shall vanish; we shall not be able to console ourselves with the idea that we have done no great harm to any one. We shall see how selfish and how sensual our lives have been; that we have wasted for the pleasure of a passing moment the greater part of those gifts which God gave us for his service. Wasted our time, our strength, our knowledge, and our abilities in getting for ourselves the means of gratification or amusement, or in raising ourselves for our own sake to a position of honor or of wealth. We shall see what we might have been, what God meant that we should be, and compare it with what we are.
Fain would we then be able to say with St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course." Our faith indeed we shall, it is to be hoped, have kept; but we shall feel that our fight has been but a poor and cowardly one, and that we, instead of finishing the course which our Lord laid out for us, have gone over only a very small part of it, and that its goal is far, far away.
What, then, shall be our hope? For hope we must have if we would not offend God even more then than through life. He commands us to hope; but in what shall our hope be placed?
Where or in what but his mercy? He will take us, grievously deficient as we are, and make the little, miserable offerings which we have to present to him, the remnant of what he gave us, into some kind of a crown of eternal life, if only we will turn to him with our whole hearts; if we will at least, at that last moment, really believe in him, hope in him, and love him. He that perseveres to the end, he that will not die in mortal sin, shall be saved.
But what shall obtain for us at that last moment the faith, hope, and charity which we need? Who will help us to persevere when the enemies of our salvation are making the most of their last chance to snatch it from us? Will those with whom we have enjoyed life then stand by to help us? It is to be feared that they and all that they have done for us will not avail us much then. No, the friends who will then be most valuable to us will be those, if indeed we have such, whom we have not sought for our own sake, but whom we loved for God's sake. And it is not the riches which we amassed that will then be precious to us, but such as we have given away to those who needed it more than we.
These are the friends which our Lord, in to-day's Gospel, tells us to make, that they may help us at the hour when our eternal destiny hangs trembling in the balance. These are the friends which may be made by that mammon of iniquity, those worldly riches which are too often the occasion of sin, and whose prayers and blessings may indeed be the means of our being received, in spite of our unprofitableness, into everlasting habitations. Happy is the man who, when he comes to die, knows that God's poor have prayed for him, and have blessed his name.