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     St. Dominic is supposed to have responded to the protests of his little initial group of preachers about scattering them to other cities from their founding city of Toulouse by saying: "Hoarded grain rots, scattered grain bears fruit!"  The third servant in the gospel story today is a tragic figure.  He receives something very valuable and is expected to make it bear fruit.  But he is paralyzed by fear of the Master and so he hoards the coin until the Master's return.  The other two servants make wise trades and have something to return to the Master.  The third servant not only fails to bear fruit but then loses the initial coin that he had!  Hence the quote above!

     There have been times in the history of Catholicism when fear has governed the church and anything new or risky was firmly suppressed.  The notorious Inquisition was an example as was the reactionary response to the "Modernism" crisis in the early 20th century.  When fear takes over, the human tendency to hold tight to what is considered certain makes it difficult to share that precious resource with others.  Pope Francis has challenged all of us to be "missionary disciples" and to "go to the peripheries" to spread the gospel.  Hunkering down in theological and liturgical enclaves of the past creates an "us vs. them" attitude when we (and the community to which Luke was writing) need to be reaching out to the "them," who may very well be those former Catholics who are aching for a bold proclamation of the gospel in language and expression that they can understand.  If there is anything to ask about those first two servants (who are rewarded), "Were you able to encourage that third servant to do something?"  We can learn a lot from this story!   AMEN