• Home
  • Mary Immaculate
    • Novena of the Immaculate Conception
  • Oblates
  • Blog
fatherdaniel
dd text

Twenty sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Homily

9/29/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Listening to the passage about the man who asked his two sons to work in the vineyard we may feel that it is a continuation of the parable of the landowner who kept going out to the market place all day long in order to search for workers in his vineyard. It was the parable we were given last week. However if we go to the Gospel of Matthew we discover that a lot happened in between. Let me just recall one event: Palm Sunday.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Although the Holy Week for us is still months away but from today until Advent we will be listening, on Sundays, to the Gospel passages taken from the Holy Week Jesus lived. Let us appreciate those sayings of the Lord which we will be given over next weeks. Those final messages are from the Son of God who is aware that it is a matter of days for him to be captured. Jesus is aware of his condemnation as he looks into the eyes of some of his fellow Jews.
In this tense situation however we see the only begotten Son of God who doesn’t stop his work in the vineyard of his heavenly Father. In the Scriptures a vineyard is a symbol of the people of God. Jesus is the one who does his ministry to this precious vineyard continuously.
Let us remember the words of the man who went to his first son and said: ‘My boy, you go and work in the vineyard today.’ This mission offered to the first son from the parable evokes the mission with which Jesus, the Firstborn of all creation, was entrusted by his heavenly Father. Before the Archangel Gabriel was sent to Mary, before Mary said yes, her fiat, to the invitation from heaven, and thus became a part of Divine Mission, it was Jesus who said yes to his Father who asked him: ‘My son, you go and work in the vineyard today.’
St Paul in our second reading taken from the Letter to the Philippians contemplated this ‘yes’ of Jesus and its consequences: ‘His state was divine, yet Jesus did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave.’ Why did Jesus assume the condition of a slave? Because we tend to feel sorry for ourselves as we imagine that we are slaves who need to put up with ‘a heavy day’s work in all the heat’ as the people first employed in the parable last Sunday described their time in the vineyard. Because like the second son from today’s Gospel we find ourselves so disconnected from God’s love for his people that we don’t see the vineyard of the Lord, his Holy Church, as our inheritance. Because we would rather call God ‘Sir’ like that second son did rather than ‘Abba’ as Jesus did. Because if we called God Abba it would mean that we cannot turn a blind eye to the people who also have a right to call him Abba. Because if we called God Abba we had to call his vineyard, his Church our Church, our inheritance, for which we are responsible.
Let me give you a moment from Jesus’ mission which occurred in his Holy Week. It was when he prayed in the Gethsemane: ‘Abba, remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’ There Jesus voiced what is our common experience: loving others makes us vulnerable, loving others doesn’t guarantee that people will love us back, that they will appreciate it. But it is not the point. We are called to minister to those around us because as Christians we have been given a charism of looking at people the way God does.
I invite you to think about people near and far and to pray the prayer of Gethsemane: ‘Abba, remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’ It is a prayer of someone who is realistic about the challenges of loving people. It is a prayer of someone who is realistic about their own feebleness when it comes to loving. However it is predominantly a prayer of someone who does not want to run away from the vineyard of the Lord, from his Holy Church. Jesus prayed it, not only for himself but for me and you.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013

    Fr Daniel OMI

    An Oblate Priest

    Categories

    All
    Holy Land
    Homilies
    St Eugene De Mazenod

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.