XXV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME     -  SEPTEMBER 24, 2017

ü  Two Sundays ago we were invited to love our brothers and sisters caring for them and advising them with love.  

ü  Last Sunday the Gospel of the XXIV Sunday Jesus told us to forgive seventy times seven if someone sins against us. 

ü  Today the parable of the owner of the vineyard and the workers is another way to invite us to love without expecting anything like the Father who loves us unconditionally.   

FIRST READING   Is 55:6-9

o   Today’s Reading is taken from the Second Isaiah called also Deutero-Isaiah and Book of Consolation. 

o   It is of an exceptional beauty whose words give comfort to the heart.   

o   Seek the Lord while you may find him, while he allows himself to be found.  

o   This is an image of a father or a mother who plays with her young child; image also of the lover who seeks his or her love, and also allows the loved one to find him or her.    

o   After that there is an invitation to abandon evil, to change, to go back to the Lord who is generous in forgiveness.    

o   And here the prophet, the voice of God, says words that he has heard from God: my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are high above your ways. 

o   My thoughts are generous no mean like yours.  

o   The Lord is all mercy, forgiveness, compassion and tender love. 

o   His thoughts do not judge us negatively, but only to save us. On the contrary we judge others to condemn with our tongue without mercy in our heart and,  without even realizing who we really are.  

 RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps 145:2-3; 8-9;17-18

THE LORD IS NEAR TO ALL WHO CALL UPON HIM

Every day will I bless you    

And I will praise your name forever and ever

Great is the Lord and highly to be praised

His greatness is unsearchable.

THE LORD IS NEAR TO ALL WHO CALL UPON HIM

The Lord is gracious and merciful

Sallow to anger and of great kindness

The Lord is good to all

And compassionate toward all his works

THE LORD IS NEAR TO ALL WHO CALL UPON HIM

The Lord is just in all his ways

And holy in all his works

The Lord is near to all who call upon him

To all who call upon him in truth

THE LORD IS NEAR TO ALL WHO CALL UPON HIM

     This psalm sings the goodness of God

     It is a fitting prayer response to the text of Isaiah where the prophet says how good is God toward all.    

     Do we not feel the desire to be like him?   

     So that with him we may work to transform this world of ours, and also our communities filling them with love and compassion.      

GOSPEL  Mt 20:1-16a

Ø  Chapter 19 ends with the sentence “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” 

Ø  At the beginning of chapter 20 Matthew tells us this parable that Jesus told about the owner of the vineyard.  

Ø  This parable tells us what the kingdom of God is all about.  

Ø  It is like a land owner who has a vineyard and needs workers who can work in it, who will be willing to pick up the grapes that probably are already ready.  

Ø  This image of men waiting for someone to give them work,  was something that Jesus had seen many times .  

Ø  Still today in many places people who need to work and people who need workers meet at certain points of the towns.     

Ø  According to the parable the owner goes out very early in the morning, and then many more times until 5 in the afternoon and to all he says the same I will pay you what is just.   

Ø  He continues to go out, but the Lord does not tell us if this is because he needs so many workers or because he wants to give work to everyone.  

Ø  No one has hired you? No one. Go to my vineyard and I will pay what is just.    

Ø  All go, some work all day long, some work some hours and the last work only one hour.  

Ø  The great surprise comes at the end, when the owner says to his steward, start paying the last first and continue until you have paid all. Give to each one the usual daily wage.  

Ø  What is this? What an injustice! Some have worked more than 12 hours and the last only one hour… 

Ø  My friend, if I want to be good, am I not free to give to this one the same as to you? I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?   

Ø  Why is this way of retribution just?    

o   This is what they had agreed   

o   But if we now look at our life, at our relationship with the Lord, what is this parable telling us?

§  The call, the mission and the recompense in the eternal life is complete gratuitous and it depends only on the loving will of God.  

§  God loves us all equally; he creates all and redeems us all with the same love.  .

§  I say creates and redeems because creation and redemption are ongoing realities.   

§  The reward, the wage is God himself, and God cannot be divided in different parts, the salary is such that it is only one which is eternal life.

§   The extra salary or reward for those who have worked all day long is the possibility to work a longer time, happy and blessed those who have been able to work for the Lord since their childhood.  

§  The salary does not depend on us, because we are not entitled to any reward, but it depends on the loving disposition of our God.   

§  When you have done all you had to do, say we are useless servants, and we have done only what we were supposed to do.  

§  Do you think that the owner of the house will praise the servant who has done what he was told to do?   

o   For me this is the most interesting parable among the parables that the Lord has told us. Our human categories, our human justice, our own calculations are excluded in the parable.     

o   My thoughts and my ways are far from yours. I think and act in a very different way than you, but you need to learn from me.   

SECOND READING    Phil  1:20c-24,27a

Ø  The community of Philippi was the most cherished community by Paul, and Paul was loved very much by the community.   

Ø  This letter belongs to the group of letters called “captivity letters” because they were written in prison.    

Ø  Paul was in prison twice thus it is difficult to date this letter. The date will be between the years 50-60.    

Ø  It is a short letter, filled with love. It is addressed to the first community that Paul evangelized; maybe this can explain his preference for them.  

Ø  The contents:

o   A theological jewel: the Christological Hymn  

o   Some autobiographical notes   

o   The church organization:  bishops and deacons   

o   The teaching of Paul about the encounter of the believer with Christ after death.    

o   The financial cooperation of this community to help Paul.

Let us see the contents of today’s Reading

v Christ will be glorified either by my life or by my death   

v Because my life is Christ, and I consider death as gain

v Paul does not know what to choose, to continue to live in this world to serve the community, or to die and go  with the Lord forever. He says that his heart is divided between these two wishes.  

v O that our love be like his! and we might experience this inner fight, between being with the Lord in heaven or remain with our brothers and sisters to serve them.   

v Today’s reading ends with an exhortation to behave in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ.   

v This invitation is not only to the community of Philippi, but also to us, to our community.  

 CLARETIAN CORNER

In this petition which, later I understood, was very much to the liking of His Divine Majesty, because it was done with much simplicity and good will, our Lord has deigned to teach me with much pleasure how He would like to be served by this ungrateful creature, it was in this how He set before my eyes the observance of His most Holy Law and evangelical counsels, and told me to observe them with much perfection; he told me with intense sorrow that He had no body in Hid house to observe  them, for the great extent that all the religious orders had gone lax in the observance of His most Holy Law and because of this He permitted with grief, their destruction.

I was shocked at this because I had always believed that all persons who profess perfection served God faithfully and for this I wanted to be a religious. Here, once more our Lord put, as of what I can understand, before the eyes of my soul, because with my bodily eyes I did not see anything, His most Holy Law and Evangelical Counsel. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 3-4.

I was christened Anthony Adjutor John. My mother's brother, Anthony Clara, was my godfather, and he wanted me to be named after him. My father's sister, Mary Claret, was my godmother. She was married to Adjutor Canudas, so they gave me her husband's Christian name. My third name, John, was my father's name. Later, out of devotion to Mary Most Holy, I added the sweet name of Mary, my mother, my patroness, my mistress, my directress and my all, after Jesus. Thus my name is Anthony Mary Adjutor John Claret y Clara.

I was one of eleven children, whom I shall list in order, giving the year of their birth:

      1.  My sister Rose, born in 1800. Formerly married, she is now a widow. She has always been hard-working, upright, and pious. She is the one who has loved me the most.

      2. My sister Marian was born in 1802 and died when she was two years old.

      3.  My brother John (1804) was heir to all our goods.

      4. My brother Bartholomew (1806) died when he was two years old.

      5. Myself (1807 or 1808).

      6. One sister (1809) died shortly after birth.

      7. My brother Joseph (1810) married and had two daughters who became Sisters of Charity or Tertiaries.

      8. My brother Peter (1813) died when he was four years old.

      9.  My sister Mary (1815) became a Tertiary Sister.

      10.  My sister Frances (1820) died when she was three years old.

      11. My brother Manuel (1823) died when he was thirteen years old, after studying humanities in Vich. Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 5-6.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CLARET, Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography.

PAGOLA, José A.   El camino abierto por Jesús. PPC 2012

PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiography

STOCK, Klemens. La Liturgia de la Palabra. Ciclo A (Mateo)  2007

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española.