XXVII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME  – CYCLE A – OCTOBER 8 2017

We continue with the Gospels about the vineyard, the theme today is God’s fidelity and our fidelity.   

 FIRST READING : Is 5: 1-7  

Ø  Isaiah says that the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel 

Ø  The Church is also the vineyard of the Lord  

Ø  And each one of us may say the same.  

Ø  The vineyard was cared for and cherished, and the owner expected good fruits. Like the vineyard of the parable, many times we have given bitter fruits instead of the good fruits God expected from us.  

Ø  We have not always acted well, we have allow us to be seduced, distracted by our idols, by the evil one

Ø  We have wanted to live away from God, our Creator and Redeemer. We have wanted to be on our own.  

Ø  And the consequences are the ones the prophet mentions, if we are alone we will not be protected, nobody will shelter us.

Ø  But we can always go back, change our way of thinking and acting as we heard in the readings last week, those two sons that were invited by their father to go to the vineyard … both offended their father, but one of them reconsidered… 

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? What 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  But 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  Or on the contrary we are distracted with our idols, the idol of power, oppression, lack of love, selfishness, pride….     

v  Each one of us may look at his or her life and see with what are we distracted, what are our idols. 

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.  

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.  

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

Beside what I saw in these sacred letters (without seeing anything with my bodily eyes as I have said above) an interior voice in the depths of my soul, was explaining me their meaning and the way to practice (…)  To my understanding I saw everything in Christ Crucified who, as he was teaching me the divine letters, was explaining me their meaning. As this was the first time that our Lord spoke to me, I did not understand of these things and I did not know how to comply with his commands. I was crying abundantly and I told his Divine majesty, whom I had very present, that seemed to me that I was speaking face to face with the Majesty of God …  Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Religious of Mary Immaculata Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 6.

The first ideas I can remember date back to when I was five years old. When I went to bed, instead of sleeping—I never have been much of a sleeper--I used to think about eternity. I would think "forever, forever, forever." I would try to imagine enormous distances and pile still more distances on these and realize that they would never come to an end. Then I would shudder and ask myself if those who were so unhappy as to go to an eternity of pain would ever see an end to their suffering. Would they have to go on suffering? Yes, forever and forever they will have to bear their pain ! Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Religious of Mary Immaculata Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 8.

                       

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.     

XXIV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME   -CICLE A – SEPTEMBER 17, 2017

ü  Last Sunday we were invited to correct one another in  love and to pray together 

ü  The central theme of this Sunday’s liturgy is the fraternal love under the aspect of forgiveness. Forgiveness that we are called to share among ourselves, like the Father forgives us in Christ Jesus who has died for all of us without exception.  

ü  Paul says that none of us lives for himself and that we belong to the Lord.  

FIRST READING   Sir 27:30—28:7

Ø  Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.

Ø  The author invites us to forgive and thus when we pray we will be Heard.  

Ø  How can we expect to be forgiven if we do not forgive?  

Ø  What do I answer to this question?  

Ø  If we harbor wrath in our heart , who will be able to forgive us? Because when our heart is filled with wrath there is no more room to anything else, thus we are unable to accept the light of God, to hear his voice that invites us to forgive, to love.  

Ø  El autor invites us to think about our last moments,  are we going to be at peace with that wrath in our heart when we face our Creator and Redeemer?

Ø   Jesus has invited or called us to love another as He has loved us.

Ø  The reading ends saying: Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor; remember the Most High's covenant. In so doing we will be happy  

RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12

The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
He will not always chide,
nor does he keep his wrath forever.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.

GOSPEL Mt 18:21-35

Ø  We continue Reading the chapter we began last week, chapter in which Matthew speaks to the community about the requirements of being a community.  

Ø  The Gospel was written for a given community, with its own needs and shortcomings.

Ø  The community of Matthew needed to forgive those who persecuted them, those who killed their loved ones…   

Ø   And the evangelist tell them what Jesus had told Peter long time before: Peter you have to forgive always, without getting tired of forgiving.

Ø   And to help us to understand the evangelist tells us one of the parables of Jesus on forgiveness and on the lack of forgiveness.  

Ø  For us to forgive is very difficult,  because the offense is an attack on our own being, thus is like being deprived of our life.

Ø  But Jesus who has died for us who has offended him more than anyone can offend us asks us to forgive as He did.

Ø  I think that if we learn the lesson on forgiveness we will experience such happiness that we will never want to go back.

Ø  Lord transform our heart and make it like yours.

SECOND READING:  Rom 14:7-9

ü  God invites his community to understand and accept one another, especially those weaker in their faith, 

ü  And Paul says very comforting words: 

o   None of us lives or dies for oneself.   

o   But we live and die for the Lord.  

o   Because he has rescued us and in life and in death we belong to Him.  

ü  Do I trully believe that I belong to the Lord? And if there is any doubt in our heart let us ask the Lord to change our heart and make is like his.

ü  In our prayer let us meditate and ask ourselves : from what has the Lord recued me?  

  CLARETIAN CORNER 

Year 1842, one night while I was at prayer pleading to Christ crucified to remedy the necessities of

the church, which in that time were many, that had cost him so much, I offered him my life in sacrifice as I have done before many times, well aware that my life was not of much value to sacrifice for so many evils, but as I had no virtues to offer him, I begged him to deign to teach me what should I do in order to give him pleasure and glory accomplishing his most holy will. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters.  Autobiography 2.

I was born in the village of Sallent, deanery of Manresa, diocese of Vich, province of Barcelona.

 My parents, whose names were John Claret and Josephine Clara,  were married, upright, and God-fearing people, very devoted to the Blessed Sacrament and Mary Most Holy.

I was baptized in St. Mary's Parish, Sallent, on December 25, Christmas Day, 1807, although the parish books say 1808. The reason for this is that they counted the year as beginning on December 25, and so it is that mine is the first entry in the books for the year 1808. Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters,    Autobiography 3-4.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

CLARET, Antonio María Claret, Autobiografía.

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

PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiografía

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

SAGRADA BIBLIA. Versión oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española.