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.