Fr. John Zuhlsdorf: 8th Sunday After Pentecost: We Will See the End of All This and Christ Will See Us Through.

This week’s task is scary.  The Gospel for this 8th Sunday after Pentecost presents probably the most difficult of the Lord’s parables to explicate.  This week we hear the Parable of the Unjust Steward from Luke 16.

Context: For the last few chapters of Luke we have been presented with Our Lord telling many parables.  Just as a reminder, a parable, Hebrew mashal, is a short allegorical lesson.  Parables generally have a narrative twist, or nimshal, that conveys a point through something counter-intuitive, a seemingly unrealistic turn out of keeping with daily experience.   We should remember when hearing or reading the Lord’s parables that we are separated from the daily experience of the original audience by many centuries and a different culture.  Some things in the human condition never change, and so are “evergreen”.  Others do change, so we must do some “translation”. …

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