Food for the Soul Quotes

“Midrash is not some private, original, subjective, “creative” interpretation. It is not an exegesis, or “reading into the text” of one’s own thoughts, but it is an attempt at exegesis, or “reading out of the text” what is there already; an “unpacking” of the gift of many-layered spiritual riches that lie there. Midrash is not scientific scholarship, or the historical-critical method of understanding a text by what we know of its history and the culture that produced it, although it does not contradict that method. Nor is midrash a reductionistic, debunking “deconstruction.” It is faithful, not skeptical; it assumes that God knew exactly what he was doing when he inspired each part of it, and it lingers lovingly over each word out of respect for the divine economy of words. It assumes that there is always more, not less, in the text than we see. It is neither a fundamentalistic literalism nor a “liberal” or “modernist” allegorizing-away of the literal meaning, but a kind of probing or deep-sea diving. It assumes that Scripture, like the sea, is vast and deep and rewarding on many levels. One of its methods is to interpret Scripture by Scripture, to shed light on one passage by using others. It also respects and uses the traditional wisdom of past saints and mystics.”
― Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle C)

“Jesus is a very practical man. In fact, Jesus was the most practical man who ever lived. He tells us and shows us, by his example, how to be realistic, how to practice realism, and how to live in reality. In reality, there are only three levels, three radically different kinds of reality. There is God, who is infinitely greater and better than people or things. And there are people, made in God’s image, who are infinitely greater than things as well as infinitely less great than God. And there are things, all the things money can buy, both goods and services, which are good but not nearly as good as God or as great as people. So, in order to practice realism, in order to live in real reality and not in the false reality that we dream, in order to be sane, we must worship God, love people, and use things. First, we must adore and worship God, not ourselves or each other or things. Second, we must love people and use things, not love things and use people. Third, we must use things, as enterprisingly and cleverly and responsibly as we can, as means to those two infinitely more important ends. That is living in reality; that is being sane. In other words, sanity and sanctity are identical.”
― Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle C)

“This Gospel is easy to misunderstand. Jesus is not praising dishonesty. The unjust manager misused his master’s money in the past and continued to misuse it in the present when on his own authority he lowered the amount his master’s debtors owed to the master. But Jesus praises him for two things: first, for being clever on a worldly level (he notes that the worldly are more enterprising and clever about money than the otherworldly are), and second, for using money for a higher purpose than making more money—that is, for making friends. He lost his friendship with his master over money, so he used money to make new friends—namely, his master’s debtors. Jesus then says that this little worldly thing, the enterprising use of money, is an indication of a greater thing, the use of greater things, and that people who can be trusted to take care of this lesser thing, money, can also be trusted to take care of greater things than money. But then, at the end, he adds that not only are there greater things than money even in this life, such as friendship; there are much greater things in the next world and in our relationship to God. In fact, he says that it is impossible for anyone to have two gods, two masters, two greatest goods, two final ends and goals in life. You cannot give your single self to a double end, God and money. You either love God for his own sake and refuse to serve money and all the things money can buy, demoting it to a mere relative and instrumental means to that one ultimate end; or, you love money and the things money can buy in this world as your final end, your greatest good, your god, and you despise and demote God and the things of God to mere means to this other thing. Jesus is reminding us of what he calls the very first and greatest of all the commandments: to love the Lord your God with your whole heart and soul and strength—and also with your mind, that clever mind that the fired manager used as a means to the higher end of worldly friendships and that you also ought to use for the higher end of your friendship with God. After all, God created it all and owns it all, and you are only the manager of a tiny portion of his goods. It all belongs to God, not to you. No matter what you give to God—your money, your stuff, your time, your life—you are only returning to him what is his.”
― Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle C)