27 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A – 2023
We continue with the
Gospels about the vineyard, the theme today is God’s fidelity and our infidelity.
FIRST
READING : Is 5: 1-7
Ø Someone wants to sing on behave of his friend,
a love song to his friend’s vineyard.
Ø This vineyard is the House of Israel; we can
also say it is the Church, even each one of us members of the Church, or each
one of the human beings living on our planet.
Ø The owner of the vineyard, who has taken care of
her, cherished, adorned, beautified and loved her it is our God.
Ø The Lord our God has beautified us, he has
removed the stones and everything that was hindering our growth in the field
where he had planted us.
Ø Once I read that we are supposed to grow
wherever the Lord plants us. No matter where, no matter the task he assigns us,
nothing is too small and nothing too big, everything is great when is is about
serving the Lord and our brothers and sisters.
Ø This beginnings so exciting because they are
about a love song, are changed in dark clouds, why? Because the vineyard does
not produce any good fruits, it has not bear fruit as her lover expected.
Ø This vineyard which does not produce good
fruit, is it I? Each one of us may answer because each answer is different.
Ø What will the Lord do, the lover of the
vineyard to heal her, to restore her beauty, so she will be in love with him
again?
Ø He will abandon her, so that when she feels her lowliness, her inability when she
looks at herself so dirty, without nice
cloths, hungry and thirsty, she will think about her situation and go back to
the one who loves her.
Ø When she will be back she will give fruits of
justice, kindness, mercy, compassion and win again the heart of her lover, who
has never abandoned her.
Ø Is that the story of our life? Is it the story of the Church?
Ø We are celebrating a Synod precisely to be
able to go back to our God and Father who has never stop loving us no matter
how great our infidelity might be.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps
80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20
R. (Is 5:7a) The
vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel.
A
vine from Egypt you transplanted;
you
drove away the nations and planted it.
It
put forth its foliage to the Sea,
its
shoots as far as the River.
R. The vineyard of the
Lord is the house of Israel.
Why
have you broken down its walls,
so
that every passer-by plucks its fruit,
The
boar from the forest lays it waste,
and
the beasts of the field feed upon it?
R. The vineyard of the
Lord is the house of Israel.
Once
again, O LORD of hosts,
look
down from heaven, and see;
take
care of this vine,
and
protect what your right hand has planted
the
son of man whom you yourself made strong.
R. The vineyard of the
Lord is the house of Israel.
Then
we will no more withdraw from you;
give
us new life, and we will call upon your name.
O
LORD, God of hosts, restore us;
if
your face shine upon us, then we shall be saved.
R. The vineyard of the
Lord is the house of Israel.
Ø The
psalmist speaks with the Lord and
o
Reminds Him how He took his people, his
vineyard from Egypt and planted it in another land.
o
For the Israelites these memories
included a great number of wonders made by God for them.
o
Why, then, Lord have you abandoned your
vineyard?
o
But, would it not be the other way
around? Is it not the vineyard that has abandoned her Lord?
o And the psalmist says with humility, sorrow and trust “turn your eyes toward us”… “we will no more withdraw from you.”
Ø Is
this our humble and trusting supplication to the Lord? Which are our memories
of what the Lord has done in us and for us?
GOSPEL Mt 21: 33-43
v Jesus tells to the religious leaders of his people a
parable about the vineyard
v Certainly those men were on their guard on hearing
the story of the vineyard, since the Old Testament speaks about a vineyard,
loved and cared for…
v The owner leases it to tenants to take care of
it.
v They would have to take care of the vineyard and
give the produce to the landowner, who will give them the just part according
to what was just in that society.
v However, when the owner sends his servants to collect
the produce, the tenants do not give it to the servants whom they mistreat and
even kill.
v Finally the owner sends his son, hoping that they
would respect him, but instead they also kill him.
v And Jesus, as he does very often, asks the opinion
of his listeners, who had very well understood the message of the parable.
v And Jesus says to them, the kingdom will be taken
from you and given to a people that would produce fruits.
v I think it is good for us to learn this lesson, because
the new people is the Church, we need to ask ourselves whether we are what we
are supposed to be, and whether we do what the Lord wants us to do. Do we give
him the fruits he expects?
v And with humility let us return to our God and
Father so that he can transform us and make us in the way he has dreamed for us
when he created us. Let him take from our hearts our idols that alienate us
from Him, our only God.
v Thus we may continue to build the Kingdom Jesus
preached and initiated.
SECOND READING Phil 4: 6-9
ü Paul invites the community of Philippi not to
worry
ü On the contrary he says to them to offer their
petitions to God in their prayer
ü With a thankful heart
ü And this will produce the peace of God which exceeds
all we may hope for.
ü Because peace is not only the absence of conflict,
it is much more; it is a whole wellbeing the one God dreamed for us, for the
whole human race. It is shalom.
ü How far we are from this? Our conflicts are very
numerous, it seems as if we were not all partakers of the same human race,
called to continue creating the world
which God began.
ü Where have we left the words that Jesus told us:
“Love one another as I have loved you….”
ü It is true, however, that there is more good than
bad in our world.
ü And there are many persons some important in the
eyes of the world and some humble and all of them do good to others, good which
is not published in the mass media.
ü But anyway let us ask ourselves about the measure of
our love.
CLARETIAN CORNER
I think that the two descriptions that our
Founder and Foundress make of what a Claretian Missionary is, can be useful for
us in this time when the Church is celebrating the Synod on synodality. During
this Synod the Church will ask if she understands and develops her life as
Jesus did and told us.
Let the missionary pray with Christ,
praying; travel with Christ travelling; eat with Christ eating; drink, with
Christ drinking; sleep with Christ sleeping; suffer with Christ suffering;
preach with Christ preaching; rest with Christ tired and live with Christ
dying, if he wants to enter into life with Christ reigning. To the greater
glory of God and well-being of my soul. (Ma. Antonia
Paris, foundress, The Apostolic Missionary II 31.)
I tell myself: A Son
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man on fire with love, who spreads its
flames wherever he goes. He desires mightily and strives by all means possible
to set the whole world on fire with God's love. Nothing daunts him; he delights
in privations, welcomes work, embraces sacrifices, smiles at slander, and
rejoices in suffering. His only concern is how he can best follow Jesus Christ
and imitate Him in working, suffering, and striving constantly and
single-mindedly for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. (Anthony Ma.
Claret. Autobiography 494.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLARET, St. Anthony Mary Claret. Autobiography.
PARIS, Ma. Antonia. The
Apostolic Missionary.
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