Readings:• Am 8:4-7• Ps 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8• 1 Tm 2:1-8• Lk 16:1-13How difficult is the parable of the dishonest steward heard in today’s Gospel reading? “Of all of Jesus’ parables,” writes New Testament scholar Dr. Craig L. Blomberg in Preaching the Parables (Baker Academic, 2000), “this is probably the most puzzling. It seems that Jesus not only presented a parable condoning dishonest and self-serving behavior, but had actually praised it! The Greek word denotes the virtue of prudence, that virtue which “disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1806). Unfortunately, we can sometimes reject such shrewdness and prudence out of a sense of false piety, naivety, or fearfulness.