Are there any parents here in this church this morning who can say that at times their children didn’t listen to what they were told to do? To the parents who have had such moments I am saying: “Welcome to God’s club!!!” I am sure that if you could sit down with God to share your experiences you would see how much, you parents, have in common with him, the Father of us all. The parable told by Jesus today recalls very many times when God heard from us his children: “Get lost. I am not doing this stuff. I know better. I am a free man. etc.” Can we say that God is a failure when people refuse to listen to him? Do you think that the father from the Gospel for this Sunday failed? I would like to ask the parents in this church: Do you feel like you are failing when your children don’t listen to your advice or your instructions? Why do you feel that you are failing? Because your children don’t listen? But tell me: Why do you give your children advice? Why do you give them instructions? Isn’t because you love them? Isn’t because you want them to be the best of the people? The father form the Gospel sent his sons to work in his vineyard because he knew that inactivity is destructive. He didn’t sent them there as a form of punishment but as a means of helping the boys to mature. Did he fail because one of his sons said to his face that he wouldn’t go while the other just lied to get away? The father didn’t fail because he still loved his sons. What makes me think that? He didn’t choose an easy way just to please his children, even when they disobeyed him, but he was still demanding because he cared about what kind of people they were to become.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Today I would like to focus on a forgotten commandment out of the Ten Commandments. As you know they were written on two tablets. How were they organized on those tablets? Not evenly: five and five, but the first tablet had the first three commandments and the other had seven. The first tablet with the three commandments was about how to treat God the Almighty:
1. I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the LORD'S Day.
The other tablet had seven commandments about the relationships among the people. The forgotten commandment I have mentioned is the very first on the second tablet or the fourth as we know it: Honor your father and your mother. Why has God wanted to place the commandment about honoring parents straight after the commandments referring to worshiping Him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: “God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God.”
The parents are the first people in the life of their child that encourage the child to go outside his or her own little world. Look at the father from the Gospel today: He didn’t want his sons to stay at home and play Xbox or watch YouTube all the time, but he showed them a way to a bigger world where people work hard, where people need to be responsible, where people need to cooperate with others.
It is the parents who show the child the word that is bigger than his stagnate and smelly room that the child needs to think bigger than just what he wants. The child should take into consideration what the other people want too.
A few word to the young people: If you would like to learn more about God, if you want to understand him better I would recommend to you this activity: When you have an argument with your parents and say to them “No” try to come back quietly as soon as you can and look at you mother or father because in their faces you can see the face of God who hears from us, his children “No” too, probably way too often.
Don’t think that if your parents were like the parents of Pope John Paul II you would really honor them. Do you think that John Paul’s parents always gave him ice-cream for diner? Do you think that they let him stay in his room instead going to school? Do you think that they themselves did his share in housework? As a student the future pope worked in a stone pit. Interesting!!!
To finish let me ask you a question what is the main vocation of a priest, a nun or a religious brother? To serve God and people. Do you know that if the parent of a priest or a nun got ill and needed care the Church would say to the priest or the nun: Leave your ministry for now and go to look after you mother or father?
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Today I would like to focus on a forgotten commandment out of the Ten Commandments. As you know they were written on two tablets. How were they organized on those tablets? Not evenly: five and five, but the first tablet had the first three commandments and the other had seven. The first tablet with the three commandments was about how to treat God the Almighty:
1. I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the LORD'S Day.
The other tablet had seven commandments about the relationships among the people. The forgotten commandment I have mentioned is the very first on the second tablet or the fourth as we know it: Honor your father and your mother. Why has God wanted to place the commandment about honoring parents straight after the commandments referring to worshiping Him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: “God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God.”
The parents are the first people in the life of their child that encourage the child to go outside his or her own little world. Look at the father from the Gospel today: He didn’t want his sons to stay at home and play Xbox or watch YouTube all the time, but he showed them a way to a bigger world where people work hard, where people need to be responsible, where people need to cooperate with others.
It is the parents who show the child the word that is bigger than his stagnate and smelly room that the child needs to think bigger than just what he wants. The child should take into consideration what the other people want too.
A few word to the young people: If you would like to learn more about God, if you want to understand him better I would recommend to you this activity: When you have an argument with your parents and say to them “No” try to come back quietly as soon as you can and look at you mother or father because in their faces you can see the face of God who hears from us, his children “No” too, probably way too often.
Don’t think that if your parents were like the parents of Pope John Paul II you would really honor them. Do you think that John Paul’s parents always gave him ice-cream for diner? Do you think that they let him stay in his room instead going to school? Do you think that they themselves did his share in housework? As a student the future pope worked in a stone pit. Interesting!!!
To finish let me ask you a question what is the main vocation of a priest, a nun or a religious brother? To serve God and people. Do you know that if the parent of a priest or a nun got ill and needed care the Church would say to the priest or the nun: Leave your ministry for now and go to look after you mother or father?
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