THIRTY FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

THIRTY FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A:
(Mal 1:14-2:1-2,8-10; 1Thess 2:7-9,13; Math 23:1-12)

Theme: We are called to live with coherence and integrity our life and our testimony

Reflection:

- Last Sunday we have reflected upon the commitment and dedicated life we should have by loving God and loving neighbor, the two principle commandments which are built one on the other and one exposes and completes the other: God’s love to be built upon the love of the neighbor because if we are not able to love our neighbor whom we can see, we cannot love God whom we cannot see (1 Jn 4:20); and on the way, neighbor’s love to be for the exposition and completion of God’s love because God made himself ‘an ordinary man taking human flesh’ to be our neighbor and to give a meaning for the love of the neighbor;
- Today we are called, as we have already themed, to have a coherent and integral life: that is, we need to demonstrate the balance between what we say and what we do, between our words and our actions, between our prayers and our practice, between our life of faith and our life of testimony; without this coherence and integrity we are not full and we are perfect; we only show the one side of the coin of our life leaving the other side in the dark or hidden; we only testify one part of life keeping aside the other part in the in cold box; in one word and as the gospels put it, we become liars and hypocrites;
- Jesus calls us to be attentive to an attitude of this kin (the first verses of today’s gospel); to be attentive means ‘to see and to observe and to act accordingly’; Jesus calls his disciples just to see and observe and not to act as the scribes and Pharisees and the reason for this is ‘the hypocrisy’ they demonstrate in their life with their ‘authoritative word’ and with their failure to ‘practice what they preach’ – the exact words of Jesus help us to understand this – “for they do not practice what they teach” (v.3). Hence Jesus calls us to be, unlike them, a people who can transform their words into actions, their prayers into works, and their celebrations into the occasions of love.

First Reading:

- Prophet Malachi and Prophecy to the Priests:
o Prophet Malachi is one of the twelve small prophets and is not known or not so familiar like others; Malachi means most probably ‘an announce of the Lord’; though each and every prophet is called to be the mouth of the Lord and the predicator of the word of God, Malachi by his name becomes himself ‘an announce of the Lord’.
o Though he is less notable than other prophets, his voice is firm and without hesitations: he directs his message with lot of vehemence to those who have occupied the post of guidance and responsibility and they are the priests and the Levites of his time; because he denounces them and warns them in the name of the Lord who has made him a prophet because these people who have to be ‘the guide to the people’ and the ‘responsible in their task’, have become hypocrites and thus have reduced the true adoration to a mere and exterior ritualism and have made their community responsibility into the play for fulfilling their private interests;
o We can see the gravity of their failure in the two ‘grave sins’:
 Forgetting the truth of being the priests of God they have walked away from the His presence and neglected the authenticity of their call: “you have turned aside from the way” (v.8);
 Less worse they have blocked the people from their offering of cult to God and they have led the people also astray with their wrong teachings: “you have caused many to stumble by your instruction” (v.8);
 The totality of their sins consisted in their failure to give ‘glory to the name of the Lord’: they are called to be the true priests of the Lord by their faithful offering of the sacrifices to God and by their authentic teaching of God’s word to the people; instead they have not as demanded from them for their being priests and that’s what made God to pronounce the judgment and a word of condemnation if they are do not do the required: “If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings” (v.2).
- Time of curse also for the priests:
o ‘And Now’ (2:2): there is time also for the condemnation of priests; though there the chosen ones and consecrated ones, just because of their being anointed, they would not escape the judgment of the Lord unless they keep themselves faithful to their call and ministry until the end;
o There is time for everyone to be judged and given the retribution according to their attitude and response to the call and to their proper vocation; no one can escape God’s eye and God’s voice; everyone falls into his word and action at the appointed time;
o “And Now” is the appointed time for the priests who were leading the people in the wrong path with their false teachings and who were utilizing the ‘simple and common people’ like poor and widows for their own selfish motives; now is the time for them to face the judgment which they have bought with their own ‘wrong words’ and ‘false actions’;
o Until now God has extended his word and his law to the common people through the mouth of the prophets and through the cult of the priests, now it is time for the priests to be tested for their attitude to the same word and the same law and that’s why God speaks through Malachi exclusively to the priests: “And now, O priests, this command is for you” (v. 2:1);
- Everyone has an ‘appointed time’ for his answer
o This only shows as already indicated that each member of the ‘community of God’, be it its priests or be it its simple member, has to answer, one day, in front of God for his words and actions;
o If there is no coherence and integrity between ‘what he says and what he does’, then he has to be responsible and to be ready to face the consequence that God would give as a recompense.


Second Reading:

- Paul and his mission: to be tender and motherly in the work
o Paul brings about an image which is very dear to the Bible (example: Ps 130/131) and very dear to Jesus himself (John 16:21) and that is of the mother (v.7); though we see the word ‘nurse’ in the English translation of RSV (like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children, v.7), the translation that is little more closer to the original Greek translation uses the word ‘mother’ (as a mother nourishes and has the care of her proper creatures); more than a nurse it is mother who shows tenderness to her children; and Paul says that the Apostle or the minister of the Lord has to be ‘so’ in his mission of transmitting the word;
o He expresses his desire of offering the total self for the people who have become dear to him; it is, in other words, giving his life for his people as in the parable of Good Shepherd of Jesus; his beautiful words help us understand better: “So deeply we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us” (v.8);
o Sharing the Gospel and Sharing the very self have become closely linked and connected; the Gospel of Christ has become the ‘person himself’; Paul still goes further saying that the Apostle has to be a mother who not only communicates to her children all her valuable gifts she possesses, that is, the Gospel, but also and above all her life itself.
- Communication of the Gospel and Communication of the Person
o Once again it is clear that Gospel message of Christ has to become the very person; once the minister accepts the call of Jesus and comes forward to fulfill his vocation of preaching, he has to make the message his own and thus proclaim not just a word but a life itself;
o For Paul, who has already said that ‘it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20), it is the life that is preached and it is the person, which is both the word and action, that is communicated;
o The preaching of the Gospel becomes authentic and perfect only when the word is proclaimed not by the tongue/mouth but by the heart/life. Jesus himself is a model for this: He is no longer a Word but a Word became Man (in incarnation) and a Word became an Act of salvation (in paschal mystery). Thus he has become the Gospel proclamation and proclaimed.
o The Gospel transformed into the Living Person; the word is not preached but witnessed; the word not heard but seen; this means, thus, being coherent and integral in the life and in the witness.

Gospel:

- The general context of the passage: Jesus admonishes the Scribes and Pharisees:
o The chapter 23 of Mathew comes immediately after the chapter (22) full of meaning: that starts with the parable of the Wedding Banquet (vv.1-14) in which we reflect that the Lord has prepared a banquet for all and he has sent invitation to all to participate but the invitees, not accepting the call and going away with their own business and with their personal motives; and the invitation is sent again, this time, not to those who were called before, but to all that are on the roads and once they are brought to the wedding hall they have to have a ‘wedding garment’ (faith) to enter and participate in the banquet; if the faith is not manifested then there is no place for banqueting; then we have question of the paying taxes (vv. 15-22) in which Jesus reminds us that we have the commitment to offer to God his proper glory and we have also the responsibility for the growth of the earthly society because as Christians we are to witness the kingdom of God on earth by working for it and that is the summary of it: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s”; and finally the chapter concludes with the ‘Great commandment’ (vv. 34-40) of love of God and the love of the neighbor in the one and the same love;
o The chapter is also immediately followed by the Eschatological discourse of Jesus with the chapter 24 in which Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple that would take place soon, the signs that would appear at the end of the age and the watchfulness that the man has to have to attend them and to be alert to accept them;
o Between these two chapters falls the present chapter of 23: it a chapter dedicated by Mathew to speak of the Scribes and Pharisees and to admonish them for their un-exemplary life they live;
o Like in the first reading also Mathew presents a controversial attitude of Jesus towards the religious authorities of his time who without being true to their call and vocation have gone away from the path of God and making the common people also burdened with imposition of the unnecessary laws which they have made for their own selfish purposes;
o Jesus after revealing the mystery of the kingdom of God to the people in the kind words and loving action and thus in the form of parables and in the form of miracles, NOW, just before his passion and death, he raises his tone and his volume in a manner little more harsh than normal and admonished them against the Pharisees and scribes just because they have not done justice to their call.
- The exegetical explanation: Jesus drawing the attention of his followers towards the attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees:
o Vv. 1-3: Moses and the authority of Jesus time: the Scribes and the Pharisees are the blessed ones because they are sitting on the chair of Moses, the law giver; they are the fortunate people because they are given the authority of transmitting the law of God to the people; it is blessed call and it is a holy vocation they are endowed with: they are the authentic interpreters of the law; and so it is always inside of Judaism; It is because of this reason that Jesus asks his disciples and followers to listen to them carefully and observe them thoroughly just because they are authentic teachers of the law and at the same time Jesus warns them to be away from their actions – because they do not practice what they preach and they have become ‘hypocrites’, the word Jesus uses very often in the following verses.
o Vv. 4-10: they have become more superficial and they have become more apparent in their behavior and in their attitude and in the particular way, in their propagation of the law: they have started seeking their self-glory and they started acting for their vain-glory and Jesus gives them the reasons why and how they have turned out to be:
 They started imposing the new interpretations of the authentic law on the people – as a heavy yoke on their shoulders to carry – so that in their failure to follow them they demand some goods from them for their own stomachs: this could be also called, in our language, playing with the hunger of the poor. In this way they have neglected to transmit the true law given by Moses;
 On the other hand, Jesus, the giver of the New Law of Love, provides them the yoke that is light and easy to carry (Math 11:28ff); that is of humility and meekness; this is the central problem which existed always between the Judaism and Christianity and between the Law and the Gospel;
 Another reason why they are acting this way is to be admired and to be exalted by others; Jesus criticizes a defect that is almost inevitable in those who desire to be the model and example for the community; the defect here is seeking for the self-glory than committing oneself for the community;
 Another reason for their such behavior is that they wanted to be ‘Rabbi-Father-Master’ (7-10): they are in this way throwing away God from his throne and they want to occupy it themselves; they are in this way acting contrary to the will of God who is the Only Rabbi, the Only Father and the Only Master;
o Vv. 11-12: Christian has to be contrary to the world’s thoughts: Jesus does not stop his discourse of warning his disciples and his followers to be watchful on the attitude of their leaders who act falsely, but he also exhorts them not to chose their paths: “But you are not to be” (v.8). In elevating them still more in their choice of following Him, Jesus tells to take him as their example: “The great among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted” (vv. 11-12); before telling them to be a servant and to be humble, He made himself a servant and humble (Phil 2:6-10); this is the difference between Jesus, the True Master and the Scribes, the false teacher because Jesus says and does and does what he says and the false teachers only say what they intend but do not practice what they say;
- The meaning of the passage for us today as we hear it: Be for Jesus and Be through Jesus;
o We are elevated in our life to imbibe the attitude of Jesus, who is meek and humble, who is servant and obedient and who is last of all and least of all; we are to learn the same kind of mentality;
o In order to learn this: the first thing we have to do is to be attentive to the false teaching and inauthentic actions of our times: specially to the attractive but unreasonable instructions of some religions on one hand and in internal sense, to the non coherent attitude of leaders – be it priests and any other minister – who say something and act differently;
o Though today’s Gospel is little harsh we need not take it in the letter sense but with the spirit with which Jesus has warned the people not to fall into the same kind of attitude and thus become hypocrites who lose the kingdom God and finally perish in their own pits;

Conclusion:

- More than the law, Gospel is important; More than Moses, Jesus important; more than the words, actions are important; more than the prayers, practicing is important; more than preaching, testimony is important: as Pope Paul VI says ‘we need witnesses, not the teachers’.
- It does not mean that we have throw away into dustbin or we have to neglect the law, the words, the prayers, the preaching and finally Moses and the prophets; they are the foundation and they serve as the basis for the authentic living; if the first ones are not there, the second ones have no completion; therefore we need to take into consideration both of them and giving little more importance to the living part of it.
- Are we really True Christians or are we hypocrites? This question should be authentically answered today as we listen to the word and receive the nourishment of the Eucharist; this is the question which we should keep on asking in every instance of witnessing our faith and our life; only then the exhortation of Jesus for us today, as it was for his disciples and followers, has meaning and its destiny in us and for us;
- Finally, we have to keep in mind always that we speak not by words but by actions, we preach not by lips but by heart and we testify not by talk but by love because we are called to live with coherence and integrity our Christian life.

THIRTIETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

THIRTIETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A
(Ex 22:20-26; 1 Thes 1:5c-10; Math 22:34-40)

Theme: we are the bearers of love for God and for our neighbor

Reflection:

- The Gospel of the last Sunday helped us to understand that we are called not only for giving glory to God with the liturgy and prayers but also for building his kingdom of peace, justice and love through our active participation in the social and community responsibility; that’s what Jesus means when he asks us to give to God what belongs to God, that is his glory, and give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, that is social task. We need to strike the balance between the prayer and practice, between the reading the Good News of the Scripture and giving the good life to others, between desiring for the kingdom of God to come on earth and making it realize in our midst by our actions, and finally between raising our hands to God in vertical dimension and extending our hands to our neighbors in the horizontal dimension and thus making a cross in life and living a life of cross; that’s exactly what Christ has done on the cross: offering himself to God in the symbolism of the vertical piece and pouring out of his body and blood for the salvation of the humanity in the symbolism of the horizontal piece on which he has opened his arms to embrace all.
- In today’s Gospel, as the continuation of the last week’s, we have the commandment of love: one commandment with two directions: Love for God in the vertical direction and for the neighbor in horizontal direction; and both these have a ‘meeting point’ in Christ’s love manifested in his fulfillment of His Father’s will and the salvation of all men and perfectly accomplished on the cross. Therefore, our love either for God or for the neighbor or for both together has the starting point in Jesus Christ, Love of God for humanity; this once again shows that we are called to bear the love of God by our spiritual renewal and the love of our neighbor (society or the community) by our presence and cooperation.

First Reading:

- Precept of same measurement (treatment): give the love if you want to receive love:
o Today’s first reading is taken from the series of social-ethical teachings, extracted from the ‘code of the alliance’ on the Mount Sinai (Ex 20:22-23”19);
o Three classes of the citizens who are under the domination of the privileged of the Holy Land: the stranger, the orphan and the widow; these three categories of people do not have the ‘defender’ and they are easily maltreated and used by the citizens because of their helplessness (stranger), poverty (orphan) and the loneliness (widow);
o The measure we measure is the measure we are measured with: it is the precept that is followed here and it is the social ethics that has to be dominant in treating others; God’s judgment will be according to their acts; He tells them to treat aliens well remembering their past status in which they were once upon a time aliens in the foreign land; He tells them to treat well the widows and the orphans because of the just judgment he would make against them also in which they also have the possibility of becoming widows and orphans; therefore, if we measure well, we will be also measured well; if we maltreat them, we will also be maltreated; if we condemn them, we will also be condemned; and positively, if we love them, we will also be loved;
- God himself takes the side of poor: for his love is equal for all
o God himself takes the place of defender for them; he has decided to bring them under his paternal guidance and for this reason the community has to surround them and embrace them with care and love;
o The heroes of the passage, the stranger, the widow and the orphan, have God himself as their Rock, Fortress and Liberator who becomes pitiless judge against those who attend to his protected ones with oppression (v.20), with maltreatments (v.21), with usury (v.24) and with the indifferences (25-26);
o In this way, God demonstrates to them the social task that each of the citizen should bear in mind and manifest in his action and in particular way ‘to God’s preferred ones’, that is, the least of the society or the maltreated of the community;

Second Reading:

- Leaving everything aside to embrace and to accept God:
o As we heard in the last week’s reflection, we have only one God and it is he who does everything in our life and we believe and accept this with our Christian faith;
o Once we give space to God in our life we have to renounce all other priorities and all other preoccupations with regard to our faith and action; we have to prostrate before the True and Living God offering our whole self to him in rendering him the glory in the worthy manner;
o The community of Thessalonica has done just this: it has given up all the gods whom they were worshipping as soon as they have come into contact with the message of Jesus Christ who has shown them the True and Ever-living and loving God: “you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God” (v.9);
- Imitating the messenger of Christ:
o The community of Thessalonica has imitated Paul with the enthusiasm of the faith (v.8) in the waiting for the coming of Christ (v.10);
o Acceptance of the messenger is the acceptance of the one who sent him: Jesus himself says that one who accepts him accepts the one who has sent him, his Father; believing in the messenger means believing also the one who has sent him; so also the imitation; in this way, Paul says that the community of Thessalonica has imitated him well in ‘infusing the word of God’ and in ‘giving authentic testimony’ to other and this way it has become also the imitator of Christ, its Lord: “be my imitators as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1);
- Being Model in the love of God and in the love of community:
o In accepting the word of God with the joy of the Spirit even in the midst of tribulations and sufferings, the Thessalonica has become model for the neighboring communities of Macedonia and Achaia (v. 6); in this embracing they have shown their love for God throwing away all their previous beliefs and their past practices of worshipping false gods;
o In testifying the faith with their words and with the witness of life, the community of Thessalonica has become also model for the love of neighbor because they have extended/offered them what they have received, the faith and love of God;
o We too are called to be ‘model community’ which pours out both love of God and of neighbor with our faith and charity;

Gospel:

- The greatest commandment: Love
o This is the central part in the conflict between Jesus and his adversaries. The question that is posed permits Jesus to proclaim the heart of the message clearly and perfectly: the Love
o V. 35: to put him to the test: once again a discourse raised by the Jewish authority to test Jesus and his message; they just came to know that Jesus has silenced the Herodians, the followers of Pharisees and they came this time with more intensity to trap him by asking him question in the law itself about which Jesus is thorough. We see a doctor of the Law coming to ask Jesus with the intention of catching Jesus in blasphemy and it is not the first time and there are diverse occasions (19:3; 22:15,18) in which they tried to find fault with Jesus; and Jesus gives a teaching that is very clear on the love of God and of neighbor; here we can see the continuity between the Old and New Testament, but it is Jesus himself who is at the centre of the commandment of love.
o V. 36-38: the doctor of the Law poses a question to Jesus on the ‘greatest commandment’, the expression which is proper only to Mathew. Jesus answers enumerating two commandments giving them almost an equal importance.
o V. 39: Jesus does not keep the two commandments on the same level and that is reason why he says, “the second is like the first” (not the first); but still it shares the same love that is expressed to God also to be expressed to the neighbor; Love your neighbor as yourself: it is not easily possible loving the other if one doesn’t love himself; here is a spontaneous movement of being (7:12 – the golden rule). The love of God is not kept under any limit. Here it loving God means to give everything to him with all the heart in the absolute manner; there is no border or limit for loving; instead, loving the neighbor means, giving to the other as we desire to be given; St. John gives a higher meaning to this neighbor’s love; it is no more referred to ourselves but to Christ: “love your neighbor as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34; 15:12).
o V. 40: Jesus provides an answer not only to the question posed but he takes it to the core message of whole scriptures and that’s reason why he adds at the end: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (v.40). In this way Jesus broadens the answer and refers it to the whole message of God for his humanity and his own message of love which should be fulfilled in loving God and the neighbor; “the completion of the Law is love” (Rom 13:10) again encourages to respect and fulfill the law because through this law we reach to love;
- Christian should go above the laws: life is above the law and is in love
o The ancient Jews are known for making a great number of laws and imposing them on the people and we find about 613 precepts among which 365 are negative ones that start with ‘do not do’ and they are compared to the days of the year, one per each day; and other 248 are the positive ones that start with ‘do’ and they are compared to our nerves of the body;
o In reality, in fact, there are only ten commandments that God has given them and he asked them to be faithful at least to these ten; but even those they were not able to follow; where it is said ‘not to kill’, they go on killing; where it is said ‘do not steal’, they go on stealing; and so on;
o Jesus, the giver of the New Law of Love, says that we have to go beyond following laws and we have to enter into the Spirit of love, otherwise we are just law-keepers, not the followers of the Spirit; we have the many examples of this:
 Mt 5:20 – our righteousness should exceed that of scribes and of Pharisees;
 Mt 5:20-22 – not to the point of murder and it is not permitted to be angry with our brothers;
 Mt 5:25f – adultery is a sin but we should not give a chance even to have bad look at a woman;
 Mt 5:31f and 38ff: even in making promises we should act as a genuine Christians;
 The beatitudes that Jesus proposes (Mt 5:1-12) are to be written on heart of every Christian;
 As Jesus, who has more than not doing evil to anyone, has done everything for the well-being of each one, even at the cost of his life, and so we too follow Christ in the way of living our law of love;
o Is it impossible? Some say (like Luther) that it is impossible and hard for the man to follow this new teaching of Christ; yes, indeed, Jesus did not say that it is possible; he said that ‘his yoke is easy and his burden light’ (Mt 11:29f). It is all the same a yoke and a burden; but it is neither impossible for those who desire higher values and who desire to live a holy life because there is the force of the Gospel and the grace of the Holy Spirit which help them; it is impossible only for those who are after the example of the rich young man (Math 19:16-30).
o The key is the way of Jesus: Jesus has shown us the mode and the way of being perfect as the heavenly Father is; “if you love me, keep my commandments” is the teaching of Jesus; love follows the living and observing his laws; even to the extent of loving the enemies as he himself did from the cross;
- Man lives for love and love perfects man to be fully human and fully divine:
o John Paul II, in his encyclical Redemptoris Hominis, Redeemer of Man, n.10, proclaim with great vigor that “man cannot live without love; he remains to himself a being incomprehensible, his life is without any sense, if the love is not revealed to him, if he does not experience and make it his own and if he does not participate in it profoundly.”
o For this reason Jesus proclaims the message of love and reveals the nature of man to the man himself; this means that without love man cannot realize himself fully; Jesus reveals the power of love by giving himself completely to make man fully alive and fully purposeful; he has given the testimony to that love by offering his life (by breaking his body and shedding his blood) on the cross;
o Therefore, love is not a mere sentiment and not a mere emotion but it is an Act; an act in and through which man turns openly and completely to the other giving his whole being, his mind, his heart and finally, if necessary, his life itself; this is an act Jesus has accomplished on the cross for the love of man and demands us to do the same for the love of our neighbor;
o Only in love man can find his dignity that is lost by the sin; only in love man explores the richness and profundity of his nature; only in love he discovers the mysterious dimensions of his reality guided and imbibed from the divine providence.
o Therefore, to learn love we need to love God; and “to love God is to be unvested ourselves of everything that is not of God” says St. John of the Cross. And to love our neighbor means to recognize in the other the image and likeness of God and thus extend our full heart and life towards him;
o To sum up in the words of St. Gregory the Great: “From the love of the neighbor originates the love of God; it is the love of the neighbor which nourishes the love of God. Because who neglect the love of God is not capable of loving his neighbor. We can progress most in the love of God, if first of all, in the womb of his love, we come fed with the milk of the love of the neighbor; as the love of God generates the love of neighbor, the Lord, before saying: ‘love your neighbor’ says: ‘love your God’. In this way, in the land of our heart the first root of love towards him is planted and is developed into the love of the neighbor.”

Conclusion:

- From the pain of love we gain joy and happiness:
o Love is an act; we do not say any more the words of love, like, ‘I love you’ and so on; we keep loving; love do not need words but is expressed and experienced only in the ‘deeds’; Jesus’ love flowed from his great Act on the Cross rather than just from his messages and miracles; it is an act of giving oneself to other; an act by which the giver stands open and transparent before his neighbor; an act goes towards the other with totality of mind and heart, that is, full of thought and full of care for the other; an act that transcends the mere feelings and emotions; an act that transforms the attitude of receiving into an attitude of giving;
o Love is an act; an action needs the energy and spending of the proper capacities for the other; an act that meets lot many of pains and sorrows, insults and misunderstandings, and even then, it does not stop going forward, it goes and goes, amidst all these hindrances, until it reaches its hand to the other; an act which finally gives full of joy and happiness in life;
- Building the love bridge between us and others:
o God, out of his immense love, has already built a bridge on the valley of our fall into sin; he has built it with the wood of the cross and with the act of love of his Son; we need to just make us of this cross of pain in and with love to reach out the heart of God and to be immersed into his love;
o We are called today to build the bridge of love between us and our neighbor cancelling the deep valley of hatred and indifference; we have the help of God’s love that makes us capable of building the bridges through which we can easily reach out to the other and give the possibility also for the other to reach out to us: thus it become an act of reciprocal love and concern; thus we bear both the love of God and the love of neighbor in our heart because the heart is the centre and basement for the experience of love; let us open our heart so that both the love of God and love of neighbor have the possibility of meeting each other and we become a man of love and our Christian task will become an act of love.

TWENTY NINTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

TWENTY NINTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A:
(Is 45:1, 4-6; 1The 1:1-5; Math 22:15-21)

Theme: As Christians we are called to build both the kingdom of God and the just human society

Reflection:

- The last week’s Gospel helped us to understand the requirements that are demanded when we are invited and called for the banquet, the Eucharist; our acceptance of the invitation of God follows also some conditions and one and first among them all is: an unwavering and ever-ready faith. God extends his call of salvation freely and gratuitously to all; but only few are in the grade to accept it and among these very few demonstrate the good disposition to realize this call; we need to be vested the appropriate and expected garment – the wedding garment; God himself provides it and we have to only keep it in position of wearing it, that means, we have keep it always clean and pure and this way we can be every ready and ever in position to accept the invitation and enter into the communion with God and with others.
- The banquet of the Lord is holy and our presence should also be in the same manner; we cannot participate in it with unclean heart and unworthy life; if we do participate knowingly and willingly in it without proper preparation we bring upon ourselves the condemnation and judgment of God: ‘to be tied up and be thrown into the dark room’; that means, all our possibilities for the salvation are tied up and we find ourselves in the room of darkness and damnation; therefore, either gaining salvation or buying destruction is all the same placed in our hands and as we sow the seeds so we reap: if we sow good seeds of faith and love then we are permitted to participate and so we are fruitful once again reaping the fruits of joy and communion with the Lord.
- Instead, today’s Gospel helps us to understand that we are called not only for giving glory to God with the liturgy and prayers but also for building his kingdom of peace, justice and love through our active participation in the social and community responsibility; that’s what Jesus means when he asks us to give to God what belongs to God, that is his glory, and give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, that is social task; as Christians, therefore, we are not called just to live a life of holiness with pious and devotional practices which is of course a great and wonderful offering to God, but more than that we are called to live a responsible life in and for the surroundings we are placed, of course again with the spiritual strength we gain through our faith and prayers;
- We need to strike the balance between the prayer and practice, between the reading the Good News of the Scripture and giving the good life to others, between desiring for the kingdom of God to come on earth and making it realize in our midst by our actions, and finally between raising our hands to God in vertical dimension and extending our hands to our neighbors in the horizontal dimension and thus making a cross in life and living a life of cross; that’s exactly what Christ has done on the cross: offering himself to God in the symbolism of the vertical piece and pouring out of his body and blood for the salvation of the humanity in the symbolism of the horizontal piece on which he has opened his arms to embrace all;
- Thus, we are to, in the same manner of Christ, come down from the Church of prayers and liturgy (from the silence of sitting in the presence of the Lord) in order to meet our fellow brothers and sisters in their need (to the struggles of the poor, the daily battles of the rejected and thrown-outs, the un-solvable problems of the innocent and endless is the list) and to take them also up to the Father’s bosom of love and joy (raising them from their present ignorance and helplessness to the knowledge and trust in God).
- We are pleased to sit an hour or two in the presence of God, singing songs and raising hands to give him praise and even more when there is prayer meeting or charismatic gathering with the Bibles and hymnals in the hand! Yes, we are truly Christians. No doubt in it and we should be given the necessary applause for this. Now the question is: is it all the Christian vocation? Can we be satisfied with the prayers we make and remain untouched in its requirements? Can we say that the kingdom of God which we desire to come on to earth has come just with the power of our prayers? And finally, can we sit for ten or twenty minutes in the presence of the needy (be it our neighbor or be it anybody), offering few kind words of encouragement and opening our arms to console them and if needed to raise our voice in the support of their cause?
- If we are unable to answer these questions or if we keep ourselves safely away from these ever persisting questions of life, can we really say that we are giving to God what is God’s and giving to the neighbors what is theirs? Through His Word God makes us to open our eyes to see and to establish the kingdom of God amidst us both with our spiritual power of prayer and with our social responsibility of giving witness.

First Reading:

- Human authority is the will and work of God:
o God is the author of human authority and human leadership according to the Christian faith; it is God who, out of his concern and love for the humanity, permits a particular person, in the particular place and in the particular time, to be the leader of the human society;
o Everything works this way, as we Christians understand it, just because nothing can escape the mind and will of God; it is for this reason we have to treat our leaders, either political or social, with respect and extend our full support and cooperation for building the just society;
- Cyrus, the Persian king, is God’s instrument: the content of the first reading:
o Today’s first reading narrates how the authority of God passes through the human instrument: “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him” (v.45:1); thus the king is God’s right hand with which he permits his will to be amidst us.
o God anoints Cyrus to proclaim the liberation of Israel from the Babylonian slavery and their return to the Palestine and therefore God’s act in their passage from the slavery to the salvation;
o God manifests his power and his superiority in anointing a king for himself and for his people and utilizes him as the instrument of redemption of his people purified in the exile;
- God and His Reign is the Ultimate Reality:
o However powerful it may become the human authority is always inferior to God; there are no leaders, no authorities, no, not even gods before him and that is the assurance and hope that God himself provides for us by his messengers: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god” (v.5).
o Therefore, the first preference is for the kingdom of God but it has to enter into the world through the human instrumentation and indeed with the will of God; therefore, we have to bow down before God’s will and reign and at the same time we have to give reverence to the human authority too just because He assured: “I the Lord do all these things” (v.7).

Second Reading:

- God’s message is infused into human hearts with the power of the Holy Spirit, the author of the human heart:
o The first letter to the Thessalonians is the very earlier documents of Christianity and it is written from Corinth in 51 A.D. St. Paul has predicated at Thessalonica, the capital of Macedonia, during his second visit in the year 50.
o The city of Thessalonica has a consistent colony of Jews apart from its inhabitants; Paul writes to the newly entered Christians to be eager and ready to accept the Gospel, not just as a word (as it was by the Jews) but as the Power of the Spirit (as it was by the new Christians);
o We can find in this passage one synthesis of community which is being perfected both in the human dimension and in the theological dimension; the human task is expressed by the three theological virtues which sprout in the faithful of Thessalonica: the operating faith, the matured charity and the constant hope.
o Finally, the divine presence is testified by the ‘power of the Holy Spirit’ (v.5), and that is, by the interior and physical miracles that are taking place in the community and by the multiplicity of charismas that are present in the community;
o With the divine spirit the Church of Thessalonica grows and is fortified and it is because it is the work of God himself: “may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound” (1 Thes 5:23).

Gospel:

- Biblical Context: to silence the entrappers
o The Gospel and in particular the Gospel of Mathew is full of ‘confrontations of Jesus with the Jewish Authorities’ and we see this often between Jesus and Pharisees, Sadducees, and as in today’s reading, the Herodians;
o Their main fear is that Jesus is being recognized and accepted by the common people as the Messiah and as a great Prophet who makes things right for them; Jesus’ familiarity with the people has become a threat for these authorities and they are afraid of ‘how far this may reach’ and their worry is that people may make him great disowning and neglecting their authority;
o The test for Jesus by them is often to make him close his face in front of the people and so it is one of the tricks to trap him and thus to see his end; we may see the number of example of this entrapment of Jesus by them: first of all, in the beginning of his ministry itself Jesus has spoken against the hypocritical example they give on his sermon on the mount as is put in Mathew, chap 5-7, where Jesus speaks of the New Law which purifies and perfects the law given to them by Moses; second, in chap 9:2-8, Jesus knowing their wicked intentions proves by the miracle that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins; then, in chap 12:9-14, when the question of keeping of Sabbath is raised, Jesus puts them down with the counter question for which they have gone out and conspired against him; then in chap 15:1-20, when the discourse about the following the Tradition of the Elders Jesus rebukes them for their slow understanding and calls them hypocrites; and in the passages like Jesus and paying the temple tax (17:24ff) and when Jesus is asked to prove his authority (21:23-27); these are only few citations and we can find them many more; but in each of these instances either Jesus silenced them or they went away with anger of not accepting his performance.
o In the same context we find today’s reading also. The intention of the Jewish authority is clear in the first verse of today’s gospel: “the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him” (vv.15-16). They have not come to listen and to know from Jesus the genuine answer; instead, they have come to put him to the test and thus prove him wrong and make him a cheater; it is for this reason even Jesus does not give a straight answer or in a smooth manner and thus questions them again because he knows their malice (v.18). The answer that Jesus gives them at the end is just amazing that they left him and went away with wonderstruck.
o Therefore this passage appears both in the context of confrontation with the authority and also in the context of his proximity to the passion and death before which his disciples have to make a radical decision either to be for the world (Caesar) or to be for God (accepting him) and he means this when he says: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”.
o The political power cannot be considered as an absolute power. Therefore the Christians should be attentive not to accept any form of power which holds itself to be total submission of conscience. Again, the political power is nothing in the sight of God because it is from his it takes it form and its usage. Per the individuals or for the society there is only God, the Almighty, whom they have to adore. All the power comes from God alone: “you would not have the authority over me if it were not given to you from above” (John 19:11).

- Spiritual explanation of the passage: Having God in the Heart and world in the hands:
o Give to God what belongs to Him: what can we give to God?
 The faithful praise: we are created in his image and likeness and therefore, we carry in our heart the very nature and very imprint of God’s love; as long as we remember that we are just a gift of his love to the world, though the parents are of human instruments for his design of will, we are ‘obliged’ and we have to live with unwavering faith in Him and offer always an immense praise to him for the ‘bounty of goodness and mercy’ he has shown to us;
 The hopeful adoration: we are just his creatures and the work of his hands; we have to call to our mind our littleness before him although he has elevated us with the freedom and dignity; as we are in world, every moment of our life, we have to ‘see and experience’ the wonders that he accomplishes in our life, even in the midst of our trials and sufferings; therefore, we just have to ‘adore him in silence and with hope’ for the his promise of joy and bliss that follows our faith.
 The charitable testimony: our faith and our hope are to be transformed into the acts of charity; this means that we should be able to see God in and through our neighbor; our daily faith should be an example and our hopeful living should a sign for other to see and give glory to God who filled us with these virtues; in a word, we have to give testimony of life with the gestures of love towards the needy;
 Apart from these or as the consequence of these we fulfill the first greatest commandment: “Love your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength”; this is the commandment of God’s love; therefore, giving glory to him means that we offer to him in return for his love, our heart, our mind and our strength; of this we will reflect more in the coming Sunday;
 All our life should be ‘An Event of God’s Glory’ or the manifestation of his love in and through us; this is what called ‘Give to God what belongs to God’ and in the spiritual sense, we can say, having God in our heart;
o Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar: what can we give to the Society?
 Our time and energy and talents: we are in the society and in the community of people and not in the desert; therefore, we have the obligation to work for the well-being of all our neighbors; we are asked to spend our availability (time) and our readiness (energy) and our capabilities (talents);
 Responsibility and Cooperation: each one is given a possibility of living only for the growth and development of the neighborhood; everyone should feel responsible for desiring the good of all and extend the necessary cooperation to the local leaders/government or the society and only this way we can build the just society; this also includes, paying our taxes in the due time, utilizing the resources of the society in the useful manner and saving the unnecessary misuse of the public properties and finally allowing them to live in comfort and peace;
 All these are the consequences of the fulfillment of the second greatest commandment: “love your neighbor as yourself”; this is the commandment of Neighbor’s love; therefore, giving these to the local authority means that we offer to it in return for its service to us; of this also we will reflect more in the coming Sunday;
 All our life, therefore, should also be ‘An Occasion of Service to the Society’ and this is what called ‘giving to Caesar what belong to him’ and in the spiritual sense, we can say, ‘holding the world in our hands’.


Conclusion:
- Building the Kingdom of God:
o As Christians we are called to build up the kingdom of God, that is, the kingdom of peace, love and joy in the Holy Spirit, as said by St. Paul (Rom 14:17);
o It is only possible by building our spiritual life through the prayers, liturgical celebrations, bible reading and meditation; our spirit is nourished both by God’s Word (the message of Jesus) and by his Eucharist (the body and blood of Jesus) and therefore, we need to pay loving attention to this spiritual aspect of our life;
o Unless we are strong in the mind and heart with this spiritual nourishment we cannot do anything good without selfish motives;
o In this way, we certainly require ‘sitting in the presence of the Lord’ and rendering him a worthy praise of thanksgiving and glory; once we offer ourselves completely to God and to his will, then, he will work in us and his work will be fruitful and then, we see ‘our prayer of thy kingdom come’ being realized in and through us ‘as the kingdom already come’.
- Building the just human society:
o As Christians we are not called only to live contemplative life keeping ourselves aloof from the world and its tasks; no this is not true as the Gospel of today admonishes us; we are called to build simultaneously the just society too;
o As long as we are in the world, it is true that we do not belong to the world (as says John Paul II: we are in the world but we are not of the world), but we have the social responsibility to create and develop a just human world, a world of solidarity, a world of justice, a world of equality and a world of peace;
o We should have commitment and dedication towards the world (or a small community in the local sense) and we should feel responsible that ‘I am in the world and for the world; therefore, I should do something for its growth’.
o We can build the human society with the same faith and with the same Christian witness; we need to ‘come out of God’s presence and glory’ to meet our neighbor, of course, with the same spiritual strength we have gained in the Church; we can also remember the radical call that Ravindranath Tagore who says that God is not there anymore in the walls of the prayer hall, he has gone to sit amidst those who are working in the stones and who is in sweat of every laborer.
o Therefore, Christ calls us today: ‘My Child, come out of the Church; enough of prayer for today and for now; transform this prayer into a loving act; go out meet the needy; extend your hand filled with my grace; continue doing this till the last drop of your blood; this is the prayer in action which I like much, than the prayer of lips;’ we need to listen to the call of Jesus who wills that we work, as his followers, for the building of both ‘the kingdom of God’ and ‘the just human society’.
- Building the Christian Unity: One Christ, One Faith and One Baptism
o As Catholics we have another important and very difficult talk; our Christian testimony is not authentic unless we are not united and unless we do not have the common understanding of ‘living together as one family’.
o We have One Christ but are we still one? This is the first question we have to answer; the other Christians communities are being divided with the selfish and dominative characters; where there is no unity, it simple to understand, that there is no Holy Spirit because he is the principle of unity and communion; they are divided in themselves and thus, one church becomes ten and ten into hundred; the reason is very obvious: they do not witness Christ authentically but strive for their living and personal growth and personal domination;
o On the other way, in the Catholic Church we are all still one and under the same Pastor (Pope) who keep us in the spirit of community; we do not say that we do not have different opinions; we do have them; but finally, the word of the ambassador of Christ, the Pope and the Magisterium, is being obeyed all over the world; in this way, we still have and we will have the principle of unity; and there it is we, Catholics, who have to work for the unity of all Christians so that our common testimony have its authenticity and its effect for the building up of the community of love and peace;
- In this way, we the Christians and in particular Catholics are called to build up these movements: the kingdom of God (giving to God what belongs to him), the just human society (giving to the civil authority what belongs to it) and finally, the Christian Unity (for the glory of God and the well-being of the Society);

TWENTY EIGHT SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

TWENTY EIGHT SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A:
(Is 25:6-10a; Phil 4:12-14, 19-20; Math 22:1-14)

Theme: Our call is always accompanied by the wedding garment, the faith

Reflection:

- Last Sunday we have reflection that accepting the invitation to work in the vineyard is the first step and we have to be ready to face also the consequences and the requirements of the invitation: the sincere and commitment in working till the end; then follows the second step of producing the fruits: the land is given to us and in a word, the world is given to us. It is kept before us so that we cooperate in the creating work of God and make it grow and bear fruits; if the land does not give the fruit, even after the attention and care provided properly, then its proper existence is questioned and it would be and it will be made a desert; therefore, bearing the fruits or producing good fruits and expected fruits is the answer we have to give back to God. Therefore, let us till the ground using all the possible talents we are endowed with and make our life, the vineyard of the Lord, fruitful and successful in faith and in love. And in a word, the garden of joy is in our hands and we have to make it grow with good fruits.
- Today’s Gospel helps us to understand the requirements that are demanded when we are invited; our acceptance of the invitation of God follows also some conditions and one and first among them all is: an unwavering and ever-ready faith. God extends his call for salvation freely and gratuitously to all; but only few are in the grade to accept it and among these very few demonstrate the good disposition to realize this call; we need to wear, therefore as says the Gospel, the appropriate and expected garment – the wedding garment; God himself provides it and we have to only keep it in position of wearing it, that means, we have keep it always clean and pure and this way we can be every ready and ever in position to accept the invitation and enter into the communion with God and with others.
- The banquet of the Lord is holy and our presence should also be in the same manner; we cannot participate in it with unclean heart and unworthy life; if we do participate knowingly and willingly in it without proper preparation we bring upon ourselves the condemnation and judgment of God: ‘to be tied up and be thrown into the dark room’; that means, all our possibilities for the salvation are tied up and we find ourselves in the room of darkness and damnation; therefore, either gaining salvation or buying destruction is kept in our hands and as we sow the seeds so we reap: if we sow good seeds of faith and love then we are permitted to participate and so we are fruitful once again reaping the fruits of joy and communion with the Lord.

First Reading:

- Isaiah and the banquet for the people of Israel:
o God prepares a banquet: the encouraging message of Isaiah to the people of Israel who are in the Babylonian enslavement that this period of hunger and slavery will be expelled and the time for the re-gathering of all the people will take place soon;
o God wipes away every tear: the people who were enjoying the promised land of Cana where God has given them milk and honey – possessions and victories – soon found themselves falling to the worship of false gods, with an attitude of forgetting and neglecting the ‘covenant’ that God has made to them and as a result they have bought ‘the tears and the fears’ of the slavery; once again, God out of his abundant mercy and continuous love promises them through the prophet Isaiah that the time will come when He would wipe away the tears they have;
o Mount Zion is the place of Salvation: Mount Zion is the place where God of Yahweh has made his alliance with his people giving them the commandments that bind the rapport between him and them; it was the first covenant through which God has called them into communion with him and to enter into his love; This alliance is broken time and again by the people of Israel through their infidelity; on the other way God has been always faithful to the promise he made to them and so he kept on asking them to come again (repent and return – is the word often used by the prophets) into his bond of love; once again now, even from the slavery of Babylonia, God calls them to be together as one people and He will himself lead them to the one place where there will be this communion and that is on the mount Zion;
o Therefore, in the Old Testament or in the Old Covenant, the Mountain of Zion is the place for the salvation and the place for the banquet that God will prepare for his people; this is the pre-figuration of the banquet of love and salvation which God will prepare in the sacrifice of His Son and with His Body and His Blood soon on the mount Calvary;
- Isaiah and the banquet for all the people:
o Isaiah is the prophet who enkindles the hope of salvation not only to the chosen people of Israel, although God will act in and through them reaching out to others, but, thus, to all the people of world;
o That is the true meaning of the message of today:
 v. 6: God will make for all the people a feast of rich food;
 v. 7: he will destroy the darkness and death
 v.8: he will wipe away the tear from all the faces
o This promise is been realized in Jesus, his only Son: On the Calvary God has prepared a banquet of salvation in the form of His Son’s body and blood, the innocent and stainless lamb; God has destroyed the darkness of sin and powers of evil and the clutches of death because of the victory he has given in Jesus; thus he created a space for the joy and the tears of all the people who were waiting for the salvation are wiped away and they are given the ‘garment of salvation’ and ‘the banquet of love and communion’.
o It all happened and happens because of the Lord who is faithful to his promise despite of his people’s infidelity and because His Hand is always there on this mountain and therefore, today we are called ‘to see and taste’ the goodness of this Lord and ‘to be glad and rejoice’ in his salvation – vv. 9-10).




Second reading:

- In Christ we can do anything:
o the message and exhortation of St. Paul to the Philippians, a letter which he wrote to them from the prison and there from amidst the trials and tribulations;
o he shows that the missionary has no limits and no boundaries; his message too has no hurdles and no breaks; as the missionary is ever ready to go anywhere for the sake of the preaching Christ, so also his message flows out from anywhere; missionary and his message do not stop or cannot be blocked even in the moments of imprisonment and of sufferings;
o elsewhere the same Paul exclaims that where we are with Christ nobody can be against because ‘no one can separate from the love of Christ’ and he gives a big list of all the possible hurdles that can be found on the way of witnessing Christ’s love but at the end the victory is ours because we are still with Christ amidst all these hardships (Rom 8:31-15ff);
o the same message he gives today also to the Philippians who were discouraged and have lost hope because their missionary is put in prison and the message is blocked; but Paul tells them to ‘have faith in Christ’ because with his strength we can do everything and we can live with balance of mind and heart even when there are indifferent and troubling situation;
- we are always same in Christ:
o we have to learn as Paul to be poor and rich at the same time because our poverty or our riches do not change our mentality for Christ;
o we have to be intact not only in the situation of well being but also when we are abandoned and neglected; not only when we are full of stomach but also in the time of hunger;
o Our manner of being Christian and faithful follower should not change because of our moods and our situations that surround and tempt us.
o Jesus our Savior has already undergone all these and remains for us the model and example for following him in every situation;
o Moreover, we have the hope that God will fill us with his grace and fulfill every need of ours (v.19) and even Jesus promises that we have to search for the kingdom of God first and the rest will be added to us (Math 6:33).


Gospel:

- The salvation is offered to all – its acceptance or its refusal is in the hands of the invitees:
o We are in the presence of the two parables which are interconnected:
 The first is that of all the invitees for whom the great banquet is prepared; is the common passage that is found also in Luke;
 The second is that of the wedding garment which symbolizes the dignity of the invitee; is the peculiar and particular passage that belongs only to Mathew;
o The theme of the first parable is that ‘in front of the salvation offered by Christ the reactions are antithetical, that is, either refusal of it or embracing of it; the first invitees, who are almost privileged, have responded indifferently, even to the stage of difficulty, hostility and contempt (v. 6). It is also the reaction of the audience of Jesus; But here come out the turning point of the parable: the plan of God is not suspended or stopped, the offer of salvation is not off, above all it resounds with more intensity for the people who are strange and whom the Hebrews cannot think of inviting to the banquet: that is, the world of poor, of suffering, or dispersed and of left alones of the streets.
o The second parable is that of ‘having the worthy requirement of the banquet’, that is, the wedding garment: though salvation is refused by those who are privileged and thus, it extended and offered to those who are ‘outside of the chosen race’, it is not guarantee even to these people UNLESS they prepare themselves well for the table meal, the sharing of the banquet of the Lord; the preparation is of having the ‘worthy garment’ of faith and love; but we see here in the parable that one man coming without this garment and such a person, be it privileged or be it called, has to face the consequence of the unworthy participation (v.13), because he is like a person who has patched his old garment with the new cloth (Mk 2:21).
- Being called and elected is not sufficient for the salvation but following the requirements of the Gospel: the conversion and the testimony of life – the vesting of the wedding garment:
o He speaks to them (v.1): the parable contains the aspect of tragedy as in the bad tenants or as in the parable of the ten virgins and of the talents; all these parables have a bad ending; we can think that the ‘proximity of the passion’ of Jesus and the signs of the wrong judgments that will be made against him have contributed to this type of parables;
o God’s Reign (v.2): the kingdom of God is the theme which occurs often in the Gospel of Mathew (13:24, 33, 45, 47; 20:1; 25:1); Mathew presents this parable with lot of particulars proper only to him and explains this as an allegory of the relation of God with his people in occasion of the coming of Jesus; in answer to this invitation that God has extended to them for the wedding of His Son, the Jews have refused the people whom He has sent, the prophets and his disciples; the destruction of Jerusalem temple will be the sign of God’s wrath for all those who have refused his invitation and that has taken place in A.D. 70 and as a curse to the hostile people; the invitation, thus, is offered to the poor, that is, to all the nations. This is the main content of the parable.
o Invitation – refusal – condemnation (vv.3-7): the king sends again his servants to call those invitees like that of the master of the vineyard (21:34-36); the dinner for the invitees is also found in the Wisdom Literature (Pro 9:1-6; Sir 24:19-21); the invitees have killed the servants like in the parable of the wicked tenants (21:35-39); and therefore, the king is angry and sends the troupes to kill those who have refused and acted badly; condemnation of these privileged people is expressed and realized in the fall of Jerusalem;
o Dinner is Ready (v.8): God does not cancel his further invitation just because the called ones did not respond properly; he still waits and extends his offer to all so that the dinner would be consumed;
o Streets (v.9-10): the invitation is sent to those ‘who are found’ and all that are found, ‘good and bad’ and thus, all and also the sinners. In Luke we find two categories of the invites: one, the sick of the city that represent the sinners, and the other, the strangers collected from the street that represent the pagans. These two express one truth that the people of Israel will lose their privileges and Mathew concludes elsewhere saying that “the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and will be given to those who produce good fruits” (21:43); but at the end the message is that ‘the invitation of God should be responded with the personal readiness and worthy manner’.
o Wedding Garment (v.11): in the most of the occasions of the Bible, the vesting of the wedding garment signifies the purification and the true conversion (Gen 35;2; Ex 19:10). This ‘nuptial vestment’ also recalls the garment with which the father covers his son re-found (Lk 15:22); it also reminds us of the new white garment that the first Christian were wearing; Paul, in many places, uses this expression of ‘being vested of Christ’ (Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). The teaching of the parable is that there should be careful response to the invitation of God with the true conversion and true testimony – the wedding garment.
o Few are chosen (v.14): the sense of this statement is that ‘it is not enough being called (invited) but to be worthy of the acceptance’. Therefore only few are chosen because only few can enter the kingdom of God through the small gate (7:14).

Conclusion:

- We have to respond in time to the call of God:
o each of us has the call of God; God calls each one to have a proper vocation for the glory of his name and for the well being of all his people; the vocation may be differ person to person as St. Paul says that there different vocations and “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” and he continues saying that the gifts (as we call here vocations) such as utterance of wisdom, working of miracles and the prophecy and so on, all of these are “activated by one and same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (1 Cor 12: 4-11);
o We have to respond to the call taking into consideration the dignity of vocation we are entrusted; the vocation may be to be the parents, to be the priest, to be the catechists, to be the deacons, to be the preachers; but the call is same to all since it come from God; and we are to answer to this call immediately and with full of commitment;
- We have to have ‘wear Christ on our hearts’:
o Having the wedding garment signifies as we have already said ‘to wear’ the will of Christ and to follow him to the end with the continual renew of our life with ‘conversion of heart and testimony of faith’.
o We have to cover ourselves with the mentality and life of Christ; we should learn, always and at any time and at any cost, to be for Christ and in Christ;
o We have to always carry in us and upon our hearts the invitation of Christ with the proper response because our call is always accompanied by the wedding garment: genuine faith and true conversion and perfect commitment.

TWENTY SEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

27TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR A
(Is 5:1-7; Phil 4:6-9; Math 21:33-43)

Theme: The garden of joy is in our hands and we have to make it grow with good fruits

Reflection:

- Last Sunday we have reflected that to attain the kingdom of God it is not enough to be sincere and authentic only in the beginning days of life of faith, but this attitude should continue until the last day of our life on earth. ‘Humiliation’ or ‘glorification’ belong to God and to his judgment; we should not be too fearful when the moments of humiliation/being less/ or of abasement come because ‘being in humility’ is a virtue according to Christian Faith; on the other way, we should not also be too proud and arrogant when the moments of ‘goodness’ or ‘glorification’ come because ‘being in glory’ is a reward according to Christian Faith and that which is offered by God himself for those who obey and listen to him even until death.
- The two modes of answering - either yes by mouth and no by action or no by mouth and later yes by action – the summary of the Gospel of last week - opens a new way, the third way of responding to the call and that is – to say ‘Yes’ and to stand by it until the end by Doing it. As we have already meditated, Christ himself is the greatest example and model for us for this type of attitude. This is the ‘mind’ and ‘heart’ of Jesus and in a word, this is the whole life of Jesus and, this is what called the ‘mentality’ of Jesus, and therefore, let us learn and live by it. We are called and invited by the parable of two sons to imbibe the same ‘mentality’ of Christ and preserve it until the last day of our life.
- And today, the twenty seventh Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Liturgy, we have the readings that teach us to ‘prune well the garden of life and thus make it produce the good fruits’. We are both ‘the masters’ and ‘the servants’ of the vineyard. We are the masters insofar we are the guardians and the holders of the house of faith in and by which we are living and we are the servants insofar we are to take care and sweat for its well being and fructification and insofar we work for it day and night to keep it good condition.
- God alone is the author and the life-giver for his people, the vineyard he has chosen for himself; God alone is the ‘beginning and the end’ for our mastership and the servanthood; whether we be the masters of the house of faith that God has entrusted to us or we be the servants for the growth and goodness of the house, we are still In the Lord; thus all our call and life is in the Lord; In one word, as summarizes today’s Gospel, we receive everything from Him and we have to give back to him all that we have because ‘everything is His and we too are His Possession’.


First Reading:

- The vineyard of the Lord is the House of Israel:
o Vineyard is the ‘Thought’ and the ‘Deed’ of the Lord Yahweh:
 He has ‘thought’ in his mind and heart to have a group of people for him; he will that he should have for himself a faithful group among many infidels of the groups, and a group through which he can call all other groups into his ‘salvific action’.
 Once he has willed he has worked for it; the thought is being transformed into an action; the will has become the work; he has worked to make his people a chosen ones and it his ‘Action’, in the process of bringing his idea into realization, there are various steps: first he has elected one honest and faithful man, Abraham; then, he made Abraham and his family grow well; and then, he has provided them all that they wanted – which includes giving them the earthly possession and victories over the enemies. And thus finally, he called this people ‘His People’ and His vineyard.
o The depiction of the vineyard by the prophet Isaiah:
 This particular song is born from the ‘work’ and from the ‘workers’ of Jewish people when they are in the vineyard which is their main and principal occupation and there for them it is the ‘hymn of the vineyard’; this song from the prophet Isaiah the direction accusation that is made to the man who wanted to be only the ‘disinterested spectator’ who does not want to do anything but just to watch; the vineyard is not to be just watched but to be worked in; the prophet is very keen to condemn the one who neglects his ‘given work’ and stays lazy without reaping any fruits in the life of faith;
 The first stanza of the hymn (vv. 1-2): shows the love of the master expressed in his great work for the vineyard; he clears the ground from the rocks and from the thorns; he constructs the tower to safeguard it from the force of the enemies; in this way he works hard to ‘express’ his love for the vineyard; love is expressed in the action, in working for it; love is not a simple word but a committed action for the well-being of the lover; this is, therefore, a hymn of love of the master for his beloved which is here the chosen people of Israel;
 The second stanza of the hymn (vv.3-4): the expected response for the love expressed both by word and action is negative; the expected fruit for all the effort and fatigue put in is the production of the good fruit but on the contrary there comes out wild fruit which is not useful and not eatable and which doesn’t give any gain for the worker; therefore, there is a sorrowful tone of the master for his vineyard asking the inhabitants of his town to be the judges for all that he has done and for the vineyard which has produced bad fruit instead of good; the question of worry and anguish arise only from this result: what still I have to do that I did not do for my vineyard and why it has produced wild fruit when I was waiting for the good ones?
 The third stanza of the hymn (vv.5-6): ‘Now’ is the word with which this stanza starts and this is the word that stands out as the link between the previous one which is the ‘unfruitful fatigue’ and the following one which is the ‘consequence for not bearing the expected fruit’. The master has given up all the hope and he has decided to destroy it and make it a desert just because it has become ‘useless’ and it occupies unnecessarily the land;
 The final verse of the day (v.7): ‘It is we who are the vineyard of the Lord’. Whatever was there before and whatever has happened earlier is part of ‘the work done – fruit expected and – the unwanted result that is come out’. All this does not delete the truth that ‘It is WE who are the Vineyard of the Lord’. It shows that God still wills that we become pruned well and we become little more faithful to work in his vineyard of life and thus be ‘the fruit bearers’ of the life that He has offered for us by calling us and by saving us.
o Various Moments and Movements of the vineyard:
 First – the love of the Master for his vineyard and the amount of work he puts in for its betterment and for its being faithful;
 Second – Expectation of the good results and tasty fruit after the work is normal and conditional and the master is very eager to reap the good fruits just because he has done all that he could and there is nothing that he does not need to do anything further;
 Third – the harvest time has become the time of negation and the time of negligence; the fruit is wild and the reaping is useless; When the time came for the testing of the faith the ‘non-committed’ believer becomes unproductive and disinterested;
 Fourth – as the consequence he received the condemnation and being left in the desert – alone and without any hope of further salvation;
 Fifth – beyond all these happenings and above the merits of the servant stands the ‘love of the Bridegroom (God) for his bride (His People)’ and that gives the ‘continuous hope’ that we are still and always ‘the vineyard of the Lord’.

Second Reading:

- Our hearts and our thoughts are in Jesus Christ:
o St. Paul writing to the people of Philippines exclaims that we have to be always ‘grateful and thanksgiving’ to God with the prayer and with the supplications because He has kept us faithful and peaceful in His Son Jesus. This is the marvelous deed that He has fulfilled for us;
o It gives us an assurance to be at the peace of God because we do not need to lose heart and we do not need to lose our mind for any unwanted or unexpected situation and even for any unbearable suffering or difficulty, just because our mind (thought) and our heart (will) are fixed and protected in and through Christ Jesus;
- We are to be after the mind and heart of Jesus:
o Knowing the fact that God kept us safe and intact in Jesus His Son, we are to bear in mind and heart the mentality and the will of Jesus himself;
o This makes us to have in our minds all that is ‘true, noble, just, pure, lovable, honorable and that is laudable’ (v.8) and it is through these objectives that we have make our thoughts and thus we become worthy of the mentality (mind) of Jesus;
o Insofar we know all these things well and insofar we have ‘learnt, received, listened and seen’ and all that what is said in the previous verse, we have to follow them and we have to live them unconditionally and thus we become worthy of the love/the will (heart) of Jesus;
- This the only way through which the peace of the Lord is with us:
o It is God who does everything for us in Jesus Christ just because He is the Master of the vineyard, that is, of the life; we are only to be available for the ‘working of the Spirit of Jesus Christ’; He does all that has to be done and completed in us for the glory of his name and for the bearing of the good fruits; we just have to be ‘his hands’ and ‘his instruments’; Therefore, we are not to worry about anything; once we know this truth we are at peace and the Peace of God dwells in us.
o Without God we can do nothing is our belief as we are Christians; Without his knowledge nothing takes place in our life; the causes may differ but the consequence we certainly face in our life; God never wills that we are in anguish and we are in pain; we gives us the way to come out of all these circumstance; we have to only trust in him and leave everything to him; once we put all our trust in him leaving all our burdens for his care, we are at peace and the Peace of God dwells in us.

Gospel

- The biblical interpretation: the kingdom will be taken away from the Jews and will be given to the Ones who would accept Jesus’ message and produce good fruit:
o This parable is read in all the three synoptic gospels, Mathew, Mark and Luke and it is placed in view of the nearness of the Passion of Jesus. The vineyard referred here is already prefigured in Isaiah 5: 1-7, which stands out to be our first reading today. The vineyard is the handwork of the Lord and it is been surrounded by the care of the Lord and still it is presented as not producing the expected good fruit but wild fruits; therefore, it comes to be removed from those who were its ‘said-to-be-masters’, that is, the high priests, the scribes and the elders, and will be given to other groups who are ready to work on it with sincerity and commitment;
o The absence of the master (v. 33): the master gives his vineyard to the workers and goes to a long distance and it is seen here the ‘temporary absence’ of the master here. The absence of the Lord signifies here his ‘invisible presence’ among his people; from the part of people it is expected that even in the absence of the Lord they have to wait on him working thoroughly and without any negligence; it recalls the ‘continuous vigilance’ of the people (Mathew 24:42-51). The conduct of the faithful during this absence should be the same as in his presence.
o The maltreatment of the servants sent (vv. 34-36): the Jewish traditions always narrate that number of prophets were killed; we see it also in Heb 11:35-37; and Jesus also retakes this aspect when he says “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killed the prophets that are sent to you” (Math 23:37; Luke 13:34). Even the first martyr Stephen proclaims this: “who are the prophets whom your fathers have not persecuted? They killed those who were announcing the coming of the Just” (Acts 7:52).
o Beloved Son is sent finally and He too is killed (vv. 37-38): Mathew puts here ‘His Son’ whereas Mark and Luke are precise in referring Jesus as “Beloved Son” and “the Only Son” consecutively; this makes us remember the word and the testimony of the Father about his Son at his Baptism and at his Transfiguration (3:17; 17:5); after the different missions of the various prophets and servants there appears finally the Son and the letter to the Hebrews clarifies it (1:1-2) and this title ‘beloved Son’ indicates also the connection and unity between the Father and Jesus.
o They threw him outside the vineyard and killed him (v.39): it refers to death of Jesus outside Jerusalem; Jesus is thrown out of the city of Jerusalem and is put to death (27:32; John 19:17); Jesus who is the hirer of the Father is excluded from his property: “he has come to his people but his own did not accept him” (John 1:11 and Heb 13:12).
o I tell you that he will take it away from them and give it to those who make it produce fruits (v.43): “I tell you” is mainly of Mathew. From here Jesus gives the application of the parable: “God’s kingdom will pass from the Hebrews to a ‘new people’.” it was the same thing that Paul was preaching in the synagogue of the Antioch and it is the pagans who were rejoicing at the hearing of the message (Acts 13:44-49).

- Spiritual interpretation: the true Israel is the one who accepts and practices that has been listened and thus produce the good fruit in the vineyard of the life of faith:
o In this parable of wicked tenants we see the ‘story of salvation’ in its various stages that are dark at one time and luminous at other times;
o The wicked tenants here seem to be the leaders and the Hebrew people of that time; the servants instead are the prophets who are sent; the landowner is god himself;
o With the son of the owner the narration reaches its peak and its summit as the story of Israel has had with Christ its decisive turn.
o Jesus, after explaining the story of the Old Testament, now narrates his story and of kingdom of God;
o Jesus does not reveal that the destiny of his coming is the ultimate appeal to the conversion, but he reveals it above all to present the mystery of sin and hostility on which the judgment of God depends;
o The true Israel is the people who listen to the voice of the Lord and who believe in His Son and the salvation here seems to be ‘the acceptance of the Son’, the corner stone that was rejected (v.42) on which ‘every construction grows well ordained to be the holy temple for the Lord’ (Eph 2:21).

- Meaning for Today: We are the Masters and We are the Servants of the Vineyard: we guard the vineyard as the masters and at the same time we work for its growth and fruitfulness as its servants:
o Thomas Aquinas says that “Love does not permit God to remain alone”; therefore it is for love that the Lord has created the world and he had given to man so that he would make it grow, cultivate it and thus becomes like a landowner who has planted the vineyard and given it to the tenants as we see in the Gospel.
o God, out of love for the man and for the whole of creation, has been always participating fully in his creation; God (the Father) who has created everything with his two hands, the Word and the Spirit, as Irenius says, is always at work and is always present in this creation in every moment. He has not abandoned it not even for a single moment from the time of it existence; He is always at work in and through his creation as a sculpture who works with the raw and unrefined material which is full of imperfections. God, without cancelling the wrongs that man does in his use of freedom, brings a new design from them and gives it a perfection; all this is because he does not will that anything in his creation loses its way and identity;
o In the creation and because of the freedom of man, there are, many a time, mistakes and falls; there are the destructive forces which act contrary to what is good; and God fights and struggles with them as an artist who works with the weak material for bringing out all that is good possible from the bad.
o Man is not passive or indifferent in this divine act of modification and causing the growth but he is, above all, called to be the hero, the helping creator and collaborator of God. In this way man is the landowner and the guardian of the world; with his wisdom and intelligence he can know and use the laws of the nature and is in grade of serving himself with the marvelous riches of the creation and he has to use it per edifying and constructing a better world and building always a life that is comfortable, conditioned for his well being and for the well being of the others.
o But Man has become a Bad Tenant: as said above man has to be the custodian of the creation but instead he has become a bad tenant like in the Gospel of today; he has not safeguarded the world; he has not cultivated it as a garden which can give place for many; he has not utilized it according to the plans of God; he has, on the other hand, destructed it and corrupted it according to his own and selfish projects making it a place which has become fearful to live in and as the proverb affirms: “the forest goes before man and the desert follows him.”
o God has created or prepared the vineyard as in the Gospel and gave to the man so that he will, as his responsibility, keep it under his control, not to become its slave but to be its master who governs it and who edifies it according to the plans of God and not according his own; as seen in the Gospel the landowner has built one tower so that man could utilize these instruments to dig and to care the vineyard in accordance with the divine will.
o Finally, to conclude and to apply the meaning of the Gospel for us today, we are called to work in the vineyard of the Lord and we have to always keep in mind our position and our condition and we should also take care not to cross our limits by sinning in order to grab to ourselves what is God’s, as the wicked tenants have done in the gospel. God called us to be the custodians and the servants of the vineyard (of the world) so that he shares truly and concretely in the identity and in the image that God has made him – that is, sharing in the image and likeness of God himself.



Conclusion:

- Accepting the invitation to work in the vineyard is the first step and we have to be ready to face also the consequences and the requirements of the invitation: the sincere and commitment in working till the end;
- Producing the fruits: the land is given to us and in a word, the world is given to us. It is kept before us so that we cooperate in the creating work of God and make it grow and bear fruits; if the land does not give the fruit, even after the attention and care provided properly, the existence of the land is questioned and it would be and it will be made a desert; therefore, bearing the fruits or producing good fruits and expected fruits is the answer we have to give back to God.
- We have respect those who are sent by God, the prophets and servants of God who come in his name to teach and to preach and to guide them and we have to render our attention and our care for them; if we maltreat them as the tenants have done in the gospel then we will be thrown away from His house and our existence will be put to test;
- Therefore, let us till the ground using all the possible talents we are endowed with and make our life, the vineyard of the Lord, fruitful and successful in faith and in love. And in a word, the garden of joy is in our hands and, let us make it grow with good fruits.

TWENTY SIXTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

26TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A
(Ezek 18:25-28; Phil 2:1-11; Math 21:28-32)

Theme: We are to imbibe the same ‘mentality’ of Christ and preserve it until the last day of our life

Reflections:

- After reflecting the parable of the laborers in the vineyard of the Lord of the last week of which we can drew few concluding points in order to enter into the next parable again of the work in the vineyard of the Lord:
o God’s call may come at any time/any hour of the day
o The laborer has to be always ready ‘waiting’ and ‘watching’ for the work
o Once the call comes he has to respond to it with zeal and with enthusiasm without worries about the payment
o Payment is always of the Owner : the Owner is the Lord who pays with the justice
o The workers need not envy other co-worker who go ahead of them or who drew little more payment just because the goodness of the Lord cannot be measured by the human mind.
- We are still in the parable-oriented preaching of Jesus:
o It was not only in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mathew but the whole gospel is full of parables of the kingdom and of the just retribution that God gives to those who accept him until the last day or that God rejects to those who neglect his call and go their own way.
o Moreover, in the ending chapters, in a special way from 21st chapter, we find more of these again to indicate and to teach the upcoming judgment of the Lord for the attitude of man in his confrontations with his God.
o One of such parables is also today’s. It not only tells us that God sends us into his field of work but also expects/demands our free and total committed response to him and our response should last until the last hour of the work.
- Jesus invites us today to meditate upon these two sons of which the first one who saying yes in the beginning but does not go neglecting his answer ‘yes’ and goes in his own way not mind what has accepted to do and the other who saying no at the start and then has an examination of his conscience with regard to his answer to his father, repents and goes for the work and thus finally accepts his father’s word.
- Jesus invites us today to see also to which category we belong to: to the first or to the last. The first accepts but does not commit to do it, instead, the second reject at the first place but accepts and goes to work;
- Jesus invites us today to be ‘those who are ready to accept and do his work’ in the first call itself.

First Reading:

- The Unjust has the possibility of salvation if only he comes out of his injustice
o The passage from Ezekiel deals with the individual responsibility of man. Man has to make a choice between accepting and walking in the way that the Lord shows and of rejecting and going astray from the path of the Lord to his own condemnation.
o God gives us the option or the possibility either for acceptance or for rejection; because God allows man to choose in his freedom; God respects the human freedom; But He ultimately wants and demands that man chooses the right path in order to obtain the redemption.
- Even the just man has no guarantee of salvation if he does not remain consistent to the last day
o On the other hand, the just man has to persevere in his justice and keep going forward without turning back;
o There will be lot of difficulties and lot of trials (though not willed always and only by God) which will test him often and more; he has to endeavor till the last breath if he wants to be in the Lord;
o There is no guarantee or warrantee for the attainment of salvation only because the man is ‘sincere and just’ in the beginning of his life and then goes away from the path of the Lord; remaining intact till the end is the only qualification for the redemption.
- The conversion of the self from the path of injustice and evil makes the person enter into the realm of the possibility of salvation and it breaks the chains of the condemnation and opens a new story of the life and hope.
- The situations and the response to these conditions are always a possibility; finally, the force of man’s liberty and the divine grace that win at the end of the day that will provide salvation.


Second Reading:

- The Paschal Hymn:
o The letter to the Philippians which is written by Paul from the prison and suffering highlights the hope and joy of the Christian in the Risen Jesus and for this the letter exalts the believer in Christ to be joyful: “rejoice, again I say rejoice” (4:4).
o This joy gushes from the victorious triumph of Jesus Christ over the darkness of sin and from the sting of death; therefore, this joy has no boundaries and limits.
o Though the sufferings and hardships toss the boat of our life, the Christian, has always the strength of the Risen Jesus to accept them and win them by being constant and persevering in the hope that the same Jesus gives him.
o This hymn holds the contradiction:
 humiliation on the descending side and
 the crown of glory on ascending side
o By taking to himself, the virtue of humility Jesus has given meaning to the humble life and obedient life: he has humbled himself to taking a form of a servant and he has been obedient even unto death on the cross.
 To be humble means to make oneself emptied and stand before the other with empty hands and with total dependence: here Jesus did not hold on to his glorious status of enjoying the heavenly life but has given it up and taken a human form, a human who is less even than of the angels (Ps 8), and more than that taking the form of a servant, a servant who bends down to wash the feet of men (John 13).
 To be obedient means to make oneself available for the given work/task and stand before the other with total ‘giving of self’ in order to fulfill the will of the other: here Jesus did not hold on to his personal will for he says, “doing the will of my Father is my food”. And he has accepted all that God his Father has given him to do, even a suffering on the cross, “like a sheep to the slaughter’s house, he has walked in silence and obedience” and in his fullness of obedience he has accepted even death on a cross.

o Therefore, the hymn gives us meaning for our life, and answers many of the questions we find hard to answer:
 Why innocent has to suffer? The innocent Christ has accepted the suffering willingly although he has nothing to do with it. He has suffered and opened a new meaning for the suffering, be it by the innocent or be it by any other; in this way, the suffering itself is a possibility for the obtaining a grace and hope.
 Why the evil prevails always? Why can’t God stop this injustice? Why God is so silent? The evil is not the creation of God; the injustice is not the will of God; God who has seen everything good and beautiful will that everything should be such; God who has created man in his ‘image and likeness’ has endowed him with ‘freedom’ and ‘dignity’. It is in the freedom that the man has to choose either to be with God or to be without God. In this process of free choice that man chooses what he wants and what he wishes to have, leaving aside what his Creator wills; it is in this process that evil prevails and God leaves the man to choose what he wants in his freedom making the choices for him and so God is not silent but always works in man with the conscience, the presence and the effect of the Spirit, to make him choose right path and the right choice.

o Humiliation verses Exaltation! NO: Exaltation through the humility
 Both the humility and glory now do not stand against each other but complements each other and leads one to the other and stands as the prerogative to the other.
 We need not be discouraged or lose the self or the life just because we are humiliated; because our Model is Jesus himself who has won the crown of glory and the moment of exaltation only through the life of humility and obedience;
 We may not invite the moments of humility to have the possibility of glory but when those situations come on our way we need not fear or worried too much for the new angles of life but we go forward facing them with hope and joy.


- Having the same mentality of Jesus:
o Jesus invites us to be united in/with humility:
 The four characteristics of ‘if’ are an appeal of Paul to be united in the joy:
• If one needs a consolation in Jesus
• If one desires a comfort of the charity
• If one wills the communion of the spirit
• If one has the sentiments of love and compassion
 He himself becomes the motive of this ‘unity in humility’ because he has given himself and all his life for the realization of the kingdom of God and in particular, the accomplishment of God’s will through it.
 He does this by being ‘the suffering servant’ that was prophesied by Isaiah 53. Therefore, the two virtues of being attuned with/in God are: being in suffering and being servant. This Christ has fulfilled until the last day and last breath without hiding or saving anything for himself.
o The mentality of Jesus is to be ‘consistent in doing His Father’s Will even until death’ on a cross:
 Once we have accepted for entering into the kingdom of God we have to be ready to be ‘in humility and in obedience’.
 We will not give preference to any personal wishes or desires but to that of God’s. God’s call becomes the first food and first drink of the day.
 The same Jesus who has walked ‘straight in the path’ of His Father says that ‘if anyone wants to follow me let him not turn back’ and “one who places the hand on the plough and turns back is not worthy of my kingdom” (Lk 9).
 The good and authentic Christian has to remain in the ‘work’ and in the ‘call’ of God until his last breath and with the same tempo and the same enthusiasm.
 In this the first day of God’s call should be until the last day and the last day remains forever the first day. Therefore, the first day of Jesus in which he has entered into the world by incarnation with love and compassion for mankind is been until the last day in spite all the sufferings and insults he had to undergo.


Gospel:

- Parable of the two sons:
o Jesus always uses this type of parable to indicate the difference between the two brothers in the family;
o In all the cases the love or the demand of the father is same for both of them and therefore, the nature of the father remains unchanged;
o Jesus wants to explain how the members of the same family differ in the same situation given to them;
o It was same when he spoke of prodigal son and it is same today;


- Parable of the ‘Two Modes of responding to the call of God’:
o Jesus’ main intention in speaking about the two sons in form of a parable is to show the clear cut distinction between ‘the first called’ and ‘the second entered’:
 Those who are called into the kingdom first are those to whom the law of Moses is given and those who think that they ‘own’ and to them ‘belong’ the God’s kingdom and all others are just ‘outside’ this circle.
 Those who are invited into the kingdom by Jesus and those who willingly accept his call are those who are called ‘little later’ but all the same are called and they with all the humility and simplicity work hard to remain in the call.
o Jesus is very much displeased with those to whom the kingdom was offered first because out of their selfish wish they have become proud and arrogant and on the other hand, he is pleased with the simple and the poor who have listened to his voice and following him constantly.
- The First who says ‘Yes’ by mouth but remains ‘No’ in action:
o The attitude of the first son is that he willingly says yes immediately after the call of the father; and only in the process of its exposition into the action it is known that he is only the ‘man of words’ or the ‘man of promises’ and he forgets them soon after their escape from the mouth.
o He lacks consistency and continuance; he only starts; he only begins; he only says; in the words of Jesus he is like the ‘one who without measuring starts the building/ or the one without counting his strengths and limits goes for the battle against the great enemy; in these cases, in fact, he starts well but in the end he misses everything because he has no good planning and he has no commitment to fulfill what he has owed.
- The Second who say ‘No’ by mouth but repents and keeps himself in action:
o The attitude of the second son is that he hesitates to do what the father says and that’s why he immediately says No; and in the course of the day/life realizes how he has shown disobedience to his father and ‘converts himself’ from the false words and ‘comes out’ of what has been rejected and goes and does in silence all that father says.
o He regains his authenticity and his obedience; though he flatters in the beginning, though he wavers in the start with the ‘asking’ of the father to do something in his vineyard, finally, he realizes his mistake and coverts his word ‘no’ of his mouth into his action of ‘Yes’ of the heart and becomes like the ‘one who before the start of the building sits and does the good measurement’ and like the one who counts his ‘status fighting’ before entering into war with the strong opponent.
- The Third Way and the ‘authentic way’ is to be ‘ALWAYS READY TO DO’.
o Either of the son’s attitude has its limits and its backdrops because of their inconsistency in ‘Listening and Doing’ and therefore, imbalance between the ‘Word and Action’ and therefore, finally, connection between the ‘mind and the heart.’
o We are called today to be neither as the first nor as the second but as the One who says ‘yes’ and does immediately what he has accepted. This is the Third Way of living in and for will of God. That is, to be always ready to ‘obey and fulfill’ the word of the Lord.
o The greatest model for this type of ‘being’ is Jesus Himself who never said ‘no’ and never ‘failed’ to do what his Father has willed – that’s what we see in the second reading of today – he has obeyed doing the will of His Father till the last moment of his death, even death on a cross.
o There is a premium for this type of attitude: the glorification and the crown of joy in the presence of God;

Conclusion:

- To attain the kingdom of God it is not enough to be sincere and authentic only in the beginning days of life of faith, but this attitude should continue until the last day of our life on earth (first reading).
- ‘humiliation’ or ‘glorification’ belong to God and to his judgment; we should not be too fearful when the moments of humiliation/being less/ or of abasement come because ‘being in humility’ is a virtue according to Christian Faith; on the other way, we should not also be too proud and arrogant when the moments of ‘goodness’ or ‘glorification’ come because ‘being in glory’ is a reward according to Christian Faith and that which is offered by God himself for those who obey and listen to him even until death (second reading).
- The two modes of answering - either yes by mouth and no by action or no by mouth and later yes by action – which we heard today in the reflection of the Gospel, opens a new way, the third way of responding to the call and that is – to say ‘Yes’ and to stand by it until the end by Doing.
- As we have already meditated, Christ himself is the greatest example and model for us for this type of attitude. This is the ‘mind’ and ‘heart’ of Jesus and in a word, this is the whole life of Jesus and, as we see today this is, the ‘mentality’ of Jesus, and therefore, let us learn and live by it.
- We are called and invited today by the parable of two sons to imbibe the same ‘mentality’ of Christ and preserve it until the last day of our life.