OT 30 [A]: Ex 22:20-26; I Thes 1:5c-10; Mt 22:34-40

 

A man attending a crowded Church service refused to take his hat off when asked to do so by the ushers. The preacher was perturbed too, and after the service told the man that the Church was quite happy to have him as guest, and invited him to join the Church, but he explained the traditional decorum regarding men’s hats and said, “I hope you will conform to that practice in the future.” “Thank you,” said the man. “And thank you for taking time to talk to me. It was good of you to ask me to join the congregation. In fact, I joined it three years ago and have been coming regularly ever since, but today is the first day anyone ever paid attention to me. After being an unknown for three years, today, by simply keeping on my hat, I had the pleasure of talking to the ushers. And now I have a conversation with you, who have always appeared too busy to talk to me before!” –- What do we do to make strangers welcome? Are we too busy that we have no time to keep the greatest commandment? When we come together to worship we can express our love for God by worshipping him and also loving our neighbor which is the flip side of the coin of loving God.

The central theme of today’s readings is the greatest Commandment in the Bible, namely, to respond to God’s Infinite Love for us by loving Him, and to express that love in action by loving Him in our neighbor.

In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, there was a double tendency to expand the Mosaic Law into hundreds of rules and regulations and to condense the 613 precepts of the Torah into a single sentence or few sentences. (The Pharisees identified 613 commandments in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Two hundred forty-eight were positive (“thou shalt”) and three hundred sixty-five were negative (“thou shalt not”). Jesus’ answer teaches us that the most important commandment is to love God in loving others and to love others in loving God. In other words, we are to love God and express it by loving our neighbor because God lives in him or her. Jesus’ answer was very orthodox, and very traditional. “The summary of the law is not original with Jesus. Its two parts represent a combination of Dt 6:5 and Lev 19:18.

The first verse that Jesus quoted was part of the Shema, the basic and essential creed of Judaism. This is the sentence with which every Jewish service still opens, and the first text which every Jewish child commits to memory.

Jesus combined the originally separate commandments and presented them as the essence of true religion. The uniqueness of Jesus’ response consisted in the fact that he understood the two laws as having equal value or importance. Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength as our response to His Love for us means that we should place God’s will ahead of ours, seek the Lord’s will in all things, and make it paramount in our lives. There are several means by which we can express our love for God and our gratitude to Him for His blessings, acknowledging our total dependence on Him. We must keep God’s commandments, and offer daily prayers of thanksgiving, praise and petition. We also need to read and meditate on His word in the Bible and accept His invitation to join Him in the Mass and other liturgical functions when we can.

 

God’s will is that we should love everyone, seeing Him in our neighbor. Since every human being is the child of God and the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, we are actually giving expression to our love of God by loving our neighbor as Jesus loves him or her. This means we need to help, support, encourage, forgive, and pray for everyone without discrimination based on color, race, gender, age, wealth, personal attractiveness, or social status. Forgiveness, too, is vital. We love others by refusing to hold a grudge for a wrong done to us. Even a rebuke can be an act of love, if it is done with the right heart.

Christian love is much more about what we decide to do than about what we happen to feel. Usually, we associate the word love with some pleasant feelings, intense and delightful emotions. But the word Jesus used means something much deeper. It is the word "agape" [AH-gah-pay], and it refers to the love that means desiring union with something that is good in itself. If we love ice cream, it means we love eating ice cream because it tastes good, we love becoming one with ice cream, entering into communion with ice cream. The communion is essential part of real love.

If we love a person, it means we love spending time with them, getting to know them, sharing the experiences of life with them.

 

Christian love for our neighbor requires seeing them the way God sees them, but we can only do that if our mind and heart are full of God's perspective, which happens through prayer. This is why the Catechism can say that "we live as we pray" (CCC #2752).

Today Jesus will pour his grace into our hearts once again in this Mass. As he does, let's beg him to teach all of us not only to understand these two great commandments, but to live them to the max.

 

OCT 18, 2020 WORLD MISSION SUNDAY– Is 60:1-6; Rom 10:9-18; Mt 28:16-20

 

Over one billion Catholics all over the world observe today as the 94th World Mission Sunday. Pope Pius XI instituted this annual observance in 1926 by Papal decree. Every year since then, the universal Church has dedicated the month of October for reflection on, and prayer for, the missions. On World Mission Sunday, Catholics gather to celebrate the Eucharist and to contribute to a collection for the work of evangelization around the world. Of the 3000 dioceses in the world, about 1000 are missionary dioceses—they need assistance from more established dioceses to build catechetical programs, seminaries, Religious Communities, chapels, churches, orphanages and schools. This annual celebration gives us a chance to reflect on the importance of mission work for the life of the Church. It reminds us that we are one with the Church around the world and that we are all committed to carrying on the mission of Christ, however different our situations may be. The greatest missionary challenge that we face at home is a secular and consumerist culture in which God is not important, moral values are relative, and institutional religions are deemed unnecessary.

 

The Church, according to Vatican Council II, is “missionary” in her very nature because her founder, Jesus Christ, was the first missionary.   God the Father sent God the Son into the world incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, His Christ, with a message.   This message, called the Gospel, is explicitly stated in John 3:16: “For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die, but have eternal life.”  John further clarifies Jesus’ message in his epistle: “God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”(I Jn 4:9).  St. Paul writes to Timothy about the Church’s Mission: “God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” (I Tim. 2:4). Thus, the evangelizing mission of the Church is essentially the announcement of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation, as these are revealed to mankind through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Why should we preach? Jesus, the first missionary, made a permanent arrangement for inviting all men throughout the ages to share God’s love and salvation:  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19).  This is why the Council Fathers of the Second Vatican Council declared that the Church of Christ “is missionary in its origin and nature.”  Hence, it follows that the mission of the Church is the mission of every member of the Church, and is not reserved for the priests, the religious, and the active missionaries alone.    Thus, every Christian is a missionary with a message to share — the message of God’s love, liberation, and eternal salvation.

The most powerful means of fulfilling this goal is by living a truly   Christian life — a life filled with love, mercy, kindness, compassion, prayer, and a forgiving spirit.   Mr. Gandhi used to say:   “My life is my message.”  He often challenged the Christian missionaries to observe the “apostolate of the rose.”  A rose doesn’t preach. It simply radiates its fragrance and attracts everyone to it by its irresistible beauty.  Hence, the most important thing is not the Gospel we preach, but the life we live.  This is how the early Christians evangelized.   Their Gentile neighbors used to say:  “See how these Christians love one another!”    A striking story tells about one remote area in western Sudan. Expatriate missionaries, especially priests, Brothers and Sisters, had labored there for many years with few visible results. Then expatriate lay missionaries — married and single — came to that area and soon many Sudanese people became Catholics. A Sudanese elder explained: “When we saw the priests and Sisters living separately and alone, we didn’t want to be like them. But when we saw Catholic families — men, women and children — living happily together, we wanted to be like them.”

Prayer is the second means of missionary work.  Jesus said: “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Therefore, prayer is necessary for anyone who wishes to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, and for everyone who preaches the Good News in his life.  In his message for World Mission Sunday, 2004, Pope St. John Paul II stressed the fact that the Holy Spirit would help us to become witnesses of Christ only in an atmosphere of prayer.  Since missionaries are weak human beings, and since witnessing to Christ through life is not easy, we need to support them by our prayers always. In his message for 2007, Pope Benedict reminds us, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”, the Lord said; “pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Lk 10: 2).

All missionary efforts also require financial support because the love of God can often be explained to the poor only by providing them with food and means of livelihood.  The sick can experience the healing power of Jesus only through the dedicated service of doctors, nurses, and health care workers. Hospitals and nursing homes require funding.  The use of expensive modern media of communication is often necessary to bring Christ’s message of love and liberation more effectively to non-Christians in the modern world.

Hence, on this Mission Sunday, let us learn to appreciate our missionary obligation and support the Church’s missionary activities by leading transparent Christian lives, by fervent prayers, and by generous donations. Pope Benedict XVI concluded his 2006 Mission Sunday message thus: “May the Virgin Mary, who collaborated actively in the beginning of the Church’s mission with her presence beneath the Cross and her prayers in the Upper Room, sustain their action and help believers in Christ to be ever more capable of true love, so that they become sources of living water in a spiritually thirsting world.”

 

OT XXVIII: Is 25:6-10a; Phil 4:12-14, 19-20; Mt 22:1-14

At an Evangelical church conference in Omaha, people were given helium-filled balloons and told to release them at some point in the service when they felt joy in their hearts. All through the service worshippers kept releasing balloons. At the end of the service it was discovered that most of them still had their balloons unreleased. If this experiment were repeated in our Church today, how many of us would still have our balloons unreleased at the end of the Mass? Many of us think of God’s House as a place for seriousness, a place to close one’s eyes and pray, but not a place of celebration, a place of joy. The parable of the Great Supper in today’s Gospel paints a different picture. The Christian assembly is a gathering of those who are called to the Lord’s party. In the Eucharist, we say of ourselves, “Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.”

 

Today’s Scripture readings give us the strong warning that if we do not accept God’s love, if we reject His gift, we can have no place with Him.

By refusing the king's invitation, the invited guests fell into the sin at the root of all our sins: ingratitude. The invited guests were so busy enjoying the peace and prosperity that the king's well-run kingdom provided, that they forget to honor the king himself - even going so far as to abuse the king's messengers.

But there is also a second level to their ingratitude.

In ancient times, you didn't send out just one wedding invitation, you sent out two. The first was a general announcement of the good news, but it didn’t specify the date of the celebration. Then later, when all the preparations were made, the second invitation would go out, giving the specific day and place for the banquet.

The guests who refused to come to the wedding were actually rejecting this second invitation. That means that they had already accepted the first invitation. Therefore, they are not only insulting the king by refusing to come, but they are also going back on their own word.

The parable applies in a special way to the Jewish leaders at the time of Christ, who had accepted God's Old Testament promises, but were now rejecting their fulfillment by rejecting Christ. It also applies to Catholics and Christians who are baptized and grow up in the faith, but then later on in life, when Jesus asks them to put their faith into action, they refuse to take the risk.

 

Attendance at the royal prince’s wedding by prominent citizens was a necessary expression of the honor they owed the king and an expression of their loyalty to the legitimate successor to his throne. Even at ordinary weddings, it was insulting to the host if someone refused to participate in the wedding feast after agreeing to do so at the first invitation. Hence, “refusal of a king’s invitation by the VIPs, without any valid reason suggested rebellion and insurrection”. That is why the king sent soldiers to suppress the rebellion.

 

In royal banquets, special wedding dress would be provided by the host to those who could not afford proper dress. In other words, when kings would invite everyone to the feast, they, knowing that many would be poor and not have proper vesture, would normally send out the royal tailors to make proper clothing for everyone who was invited or in some other way provide the fitting clothing. Hence it is s not difficult to recognize why the king would be so upset about seeing this improperly attired man who was so lazy, or stubborn, perhaps, that he deliberately refused to wear the clothing that was required and made freely available.

The “wedding garment” in the parable refers to true discipleship rather than uncommitted membership. The parable means that when one freely accepts Christ as one’s Lord and Savior, one must dedicate one’s life to Jesus.  In other words, the Christian must be clothed in the spirit and teaching of Jesus. Grace is a gift and a grave responsibility. Hence, a Christian must be clothed in a new purity and a new holiness.

 

The first lesson taught by the parable is that God invites everyone, but each of us needs to give God’s invitation priority over every other good and important thing in life. The second lesson for all of us is that it’s not enough just to show up. We must be properly “dressed up.” In his Letter to the Colossians, Paul directs his converts, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.   … Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:12-14).

 

It is not enough for one to say, “I Believe,” and then simply to continue living one’s life in one’s accustomed sinful ways.  Although Jesus accepted the tax collectors and prostitutes, he demanded that they abandon their evil ways (“Go, and sin no more!”).

We “wear” the garment by cooperating with God’s grace in prayer, in attending Mass and receiving the Sacraments with devotion, in doing good and avoiding evil, and in responding to His love by lovingly sharing our blessings with others. The parable warns us that membership in a Church alone does not guarantee our eternal salvation.

 

Let’s examine, have we, at least rarely, given priority to our vacation first or taken a new car for a Sunday drive or spent the weekend with your spouse (the excuses made in the parable) rather than attending the wedding banquet of the King’s son? Let’s remember that, it is not a pleasing act to the King.

 

OT XXVII [A] SUNDAY Is 5:1-7; Phil 4:6-9; Mt 21:33-43

Once at a Church meeting a wealthy member of the church rose to tell the rest of those present about his Christian Faith. “I’m a millionaire,” he said, “and I attribute my wealth to the blessings of God in my life.” He went on to recall the turning point in his relationship with God. As a young man, he had just earned his first dollar, and he went to a Church meeting that night. The speaker at that meeting was a missionary who told about his work in the mission field. Before the offering plate was passed around, the preacher told everyone that everything that was collected that night would be given to this missionary to help fund his work on behalf of the Church. The wealthy man wanted to give to support mission work, but he knew he couldn’t make change from the offering plate. He knew he either had to give all he had or nothing at all. At that moment, he decided to give all that he had to God. Looking back, he said he knew that God had blessed that decision and had made him wealthy. When he finished, there was silence in the room. As he returned to the pew and sat down, an elderly lady seated behind him leaned forward and said, “I dare you, to do it again!” — When we start out, it’s easy to remember that the gifts and opportunities that come our way are from God. But something happens along the way. We forget the Owner. We come to think of the vineyard and everything it produces as something we own.

 

In today’s Gospel Our Lord invites us to imagine a group of men given the opportunity of a lifetime, both professionally and personally: not only a good place to live but a great way to make a living. The tenants start beating up the people coming to collect the owner’s fair share and leaving him empty handed. There’s no remorse: gradually they start killing them too.

The owner shows a kindness that the tenants, to any outside observer, do not deserve. He keeps giving them opportunities until one day he gives them the greatest and most definitive opportunity: he sends the heir himself. In their twisted logic, they convince themselves that by eliminating the heir any trace of ownership will die with the owner, and he’ll also stop bothering them.

The parable of the wicked tenants is a way of teaching the Pharisees that they had fallen into a warped sense of entitlement over something that didn’t belong to them: the People of God.

The parable gives us a great analogy for life on earth. The world is God’s — he’s the “landowner” — and we are here tending it for him while he is “away.” The Fathers of the Church point out that he’s not truly “away” — he just acts as if he were, for our sake. He wants to trust us and he wants us to trust him. But he doesn’t leave his people alone with their enormous task. He sends help — his grace, which is like the rain, and special servants, the prophets.

We, the chosen people of God go from “The vineyard of the Lord to the house of Israel,” to “I am the vine and you are the branches.” The kingdom of heaven moves from Israel to the Body of Christ, the Church.

The parable is not just a history lesson, however. It is a warning about our own future.

“A vineyard has been let out to each of us to tend, when the mystery of baptism was given us, to be cultivated by action,” writes St. Rabanus Maurus, a 9th century Archbishop cited by St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Rabanus says the Lord also sends servants to help us tend our vineyards, too, namely “Law, Psalm, and Prophecy” — the Church’s morality, worship, and doctrines. If we reject these, we lose. “The gift of grace which the proud has scorned is given to the lowly.”

When many of us neglect our vineyards the same way, the effect is massive. In the history of the Church in America, whenever Catholics have rejected the Church’s authority, we have quickly lost our credibility and our ability to attract followers.

In the 18th and 19th Centuries, many Catholics were afraid to offend the world and so downplayed or rejected the Church’s teaching against slavery and for the dignity of all people. The Church lost credibility and we handed our moral authority to others.

In the 20th century, when the Church taught against abortion, Catholics gained credibility whenever they stood strong for the right to life, but suffered huge losses when prominent Catholics in public life, medicine, and academia embraced and advanced the culture of death.

In the 21st century the Church is being tested again on the issue of marriage and sexuality. If we stay strong, we will suffer in the short term but then gain ground by defending the way of life that delivers true happiness. If we “slay the prophets” of Church morality, sacramental life, and teaching to try to please the world, we will lose big.

God laments: “I expected my vineyard to yield good grapes. Why did it yield sour ones instead? It is the time to examine our stewardship responsibility. As a Church we need to repent and return to be humble responsible stewards.

The greatest saints have accused themselves of being the greatest sinners. St Francis of Assisi (Whose feast falls today) called himself the worst sinner he knew.

One of his followers objected: "Oh c'mon Francis, you know you're holier than all the rest of us combined."

St Francis looked at him and responded: "If anyone else had received half the grace I have received, they would be twice as holy as I am."  He knew he was a sinner.

If we think we're not so bad, it's a sure sign that we have been infected by the lies of popular culture, and that we need to ask for some help to find out how bad we really are. Until we learn to take responsibility for our selfish actions and tendencies, God will not be able to really rejuvenate the garden of our soul with his grace. Let’s honor God the vineyard Owner and return to Him His due for the blessings He bestowed on us.