Now it is only when we know God that we can serve him; know him, that is to say, not as we know someone just by sight, but as we know someone who shares our life.  And the link between the knowledge of God and the service of God is the love of God.

As in the parable, it often happens that people today look on God as a hard taskmaster who wants far more from them than is reasonable for them to give.  Some, therefore, decide to give him nothing.  Others are afraid that giving nothing could be risky, so they let God have the least they think they can get away with.  They are all ready to justify themselves with a plentiful store of excuses.  “Master, I knew you to be a hard man…so I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground” (RSV Catholic edition, Matthew 25:24,25).

That is what has happened to people who, as they grow old, are farther from God than when they were children or young people at the time of their Confirmation.  For the test of what we have done with all our talents can be put in two questions: “What has God actually received from me in return; and what have my fellow human beings received from me?”