Using Our Talents

St. Marcellin Champagnat was noted for his practicality.  Having grown up on the family farm, he learned the usual skills of "fixing things", since, for the most part, farm families at that time had to be as independent as possible. He certainly knew how to use a hammer, saw, shovel, sledge hammer; working with stone and cement, even glass, were among his practical skills.  Spelling and eloquent speaking and composition, were not his gifts, yet his diligent use of all the levels of what he could do and learned to do, remind us as does the parable of the talents in today's Gospel, that it's not the number of gifts we have, nor their quality, but how we use them.  None of us has come into the world with an empty cart; each of us has something with which we can work.  The challenge is not to be lazy with them, but to "invest" them into the service of the community in which we find ourselves:  our families, our jobs, our circle of friends.  It's doesn't take a Ph.D. to offer a hand to a neighbor, to volunteer in our parishes or institutions such as Lazarus House, or to take time to visit relatives, friends, or even strangers in nursing homes. Schools are always looking for help with functions.  Even if we can just BE there, we add something that wasn't there before. St. Marcellin started a world-wide religious congregation that is 195 years old with great faith and the simple practical skills with which God endowed him.  What can we do?
Bro. Rene