Our neighbor is anyone and everyone, unconditionally, no exceptions.

 

Thirtieth Sunday in OT A  2023

For parts of the last two weeks, I was on my annual retreat – an eight day silent, contemplative Ignatian retreat at a Jesuit retreat house in Gloucester, MA.  I have participated in this silent retreat atmosphere for the last fifty years in this retreat house known as Gonzaga Eastern Point.  This annual retreat is such a blessing to my life.  Its purpose is to deepen your relationship with God as a God who loves unconditionally and that our response to God is gratitude and to return our love for God.

Now if this is true confessions, I did sneak out on the last night for dinner in Gloucester with Fr Al Delmonte and my sister Jean.  Fr Al and my sister Jean were on this retreat as well.  But to be clear, other than that one exception, silence and prayer with the Lord was the retreat atmosphere.

As I pray over this Gospel of the two great commandments – love of God and love of neighbor – this retreat further convicted me of the inextricable link between these two commandments.  One cannot love God without loving all that is of God.  Our love of God leads us to love and serve and care our neighbor.

If you ask yourself, what does God want of us, what is God’s priority for us?  God’s priority for us is that we love our neighbor as ourself.   For Jesus, our neighbor is anyone and everyone, unconditionally, no exceptions.  To say again, for Jesus, our neighbor is anyone and everyone, unconditionally, no exceptions.

 

The metaphor that is meaningful to me is that our of Jesus in the “fixed tabernacle” here in Church leads us to reverence Jesus in “mobile tabernacles” in our lives – that is to say, Jesus is present in our neighbors wherever and whenever we encounter them.

 

Yes, the great commandment begins with our encounter with Jesus.  Please God we continuously seek to deepen our relationship with the Lord.  My retreat helps me to focus on what is most important in my life.  The Lord accompanies wherever I find myself.  I pray each day for the spiritual sightedness to recognize that all is a gift of God. and His presence is with me each and every moment of the day.

 

 

 

As I often remind myself, if I am too busy to pray, then I am too busy.  Something else must give.

 

Our encounter with Jesus leads us to those Jesus loves.  All of humanity are the recipients of the love of Jesus.

 

One of the ways I like to pray the two great commandments is the God-given challenge to EXPAND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

Expanding your neighborhood includes the member of your family that is so difficult to get along with.

Expanding your neighborhood include the people you disagree with:  perhaps their sexual lifestyle; their way of practicing their religion; their racial views; their political views;  whatever it is that gives you cardiac arrest.

As we think globally, EXPAND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD doesn’t give us the right to invade another country.  As we ponder the destructiveness of war in the Middle East with Hamas, the Israelis, and the Palestinians and equally the tragedy of war with Russia and Ukraine, we pray for peace.  EXPAND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD means that we reverence and respect the dignity of those who are different than ourselves.

Love your neighbor, no exceptions.

Meaningful discipleship is not found in the mere observance of law.  Meaningful religion is lived out in a triangle of love – love for God, love for others, and love for self.  In that triangle of love is found the secret of a fulfilling life on earth and a foretaste of the life to come.

In our reflection on the parable of the Good Samaritan, Pope Francis challenges us with the meditation that each day we have to decide whether to be a Good Samaritan or indifferent bystanders as we come upon the needy and the hurting people of our community.  The Pope asks:  “Will we bend down and to touch and heal the wounds of others?”

Our intimacy with the Lord will be based on the love and intimacy we have shared with all of God’s people.  The first Scripture reading from the book of Exodus concretizes Jesus’ teaching.  The alien, the orphan and the poor are our neighbors.  Immigrants whether documented or undocumented, saints or sinners, every member of LGBTQ, your family member whom it is most difficult for you to

 

 

relate to is your neighbor to be loved and is the barometer of the depth of our love of God.

The implication is that loving our neighbor means more than being kind to our friends and relatives, or to the person who lives next door. Loving one’s neighbor means doing right by any widow or orphan: seeing that the hungry are fed and the homeless sheltered, that the poor have their basic needs met, that the unemployed do not suffer from want, that the young are educated and the old are cared for.

To do less is to fail in our love for neighbor.

The commandments to love God with all one’s heart and to love one’s neighbor as oneself are the heart and soul of Christian morality.

Then St. Paul in the second Scripture in his Letter to the Thessalonians emphasized thar we must walk our talk in living the commandments of love.  The actions of our lives need to witness to the love and care we have for one another.

With each Eucharist we celebrate, in the Penitential Rite we acknowledge the areas of our life in which Jesus is not yet Lord, the ways that we have not loved God and our neighbor.  Thankfully and gratefully, we are the recipients of the merciful love of Jesus.  I am broken and yet I am welcomed into Christ’s presence.

It has been said that if some of the gatekeepers of the Catholic Church had been present at the Last Supper, Jesus would have dined alone.  To pray about this statement, we may find a grain of truth.

Yes.  We are flawed human beings who are continuously who are the recipients of the merciful and forgiving love of Jesus.

As we have forgiven, so also are we to forgive.  To repeat, we are to love our neighbor, no exceptions.

Have a Blessed day.

 

The vineyard of the Lord is within us.

 

Twenty Seventh Sunday in OT  A  2023

 

The Scriptures today speak of the vineyard of the Lord. The vineyard of the Lord is the reign of God, the blessings of the Lord. The vineyard of the Lord is among us.

In the first Scripture reading and in the psalm response, the vineyard of the Lord is the House of Israel.

In this homily, I invite you to ponder where the vineyard of the Lord is to be found?

n  IN YOUR OWN HEART.

n  IN THE CHURCH

n  IN THE WORLD.

In the Gospel parable the vineyard is the reign of God that is to be found within us. The vineyard of the Lord is to be found in our own hearts. God goes to great lengths to prepare incredible blessings for the vineyard. We are nurtured by God’s Word, fed at God’s table, helped by the commandment of love. All we need do is to let God tend us and bring us to produce good fruit. We are invited in this celebration of the Eucharist to invite Christ into the vineyard of our own heart and to open our hearts and our minds to his loving presence.

 We become our best selves when we open ourselves to giving and receiving the love of others. The vineyard of the Lord is to be found within us, but this vineyard is connected to our brothers and sisters with Christ as our cornerstone. This is the mystery of the Church of Jesus. We are better together.

This leads us to a second image of where the vineyard of the Lord is to be found. The whole Church is the vineyard of the Lord. Ultimately, in a wider sense, the whole world is the vineyard of the Lord.

The Gospel parable gives a warning of what can go wrong with this beautiful imagery of all of us together being the vineyard of the Lord. From the Gospel parable, the tenants to whom the vineyard is entrusted got greedy and wanted everything for themselves. Plain and simple, there is rebellion in the vineyard. Yes, there is sinfulness and demons in the vineyard.

There is rebellion in the vineyard of our own hearts when we get greedy and want everything for ourselves and are unwilling to share. In the end, the greed of the tenants becomes their undoing for the king will have no part with them.

What would life be like if we had the spiritual sightedness to believe that everything is on loan to us from God? We are temporary tenants. We don’t own anything, even though sometimes we act as if we own it all. Everything ultimately belongs to God.

We must also look within and ask whether we at times we are the tenant farmers who abuse the giftedness we have been given? What is the produce that comes from the vineyard of our own heart, and do we give it back gratefully to God our landowner?

Our lives are a vineyard that God entrusts to us. Each of our lives, each of our vineyards, is richly blessed. The voice of God’s Son calls out to us to share our talents, our riches, our giftedness with those around us and with those who have less. May we be conscious that like the tenant farmers in the Gospel, we are tempted to be greedy and provide only for ourselves. When we excuse ourselves from generous sharing and love of others, when we become more interested in security rather than a Gospel commitment to sharing, we fail to respond to the call of God In our lives. The vineyard of our own heart is ripe for the harvest, and God calls out to each one of us: “Come, share what you have and discover that the real treasure is not what you possess but in what you are willing to give away.”

As we reflect on the vineyard of the Lord as being the Church, we pray for the success of the synod that is now talking place at the Vatican at the invitation of Pope Francis. In calling the synod, Pope Francis desires us to a listening and a discerning and a welcoming Church. All the people of the God, the community of the baptized need to be listened to, in their particular place and time, in order to know that the Spirit of God is calling the Church to be.

Now you may ask what in the world is a synod? It is another word for collegiality.        A synodal church is a listening Church, a church of encounter and dialogue. It is not afraid of the variety of Catholic ideas and people but values it. A synodal Church is open, welcoming and embraces all.

Ultimately a synodal church is a church of discernment where we listen attentively to each other’s lived experience, we grow in mutual respect and begin to discern the movements of God’s Spirit in the lives of others and in our own. Pope Francis is aware of different points of tension in the Church, not conflicting hopes conflicting identities, our different understandings of what the Catholic Church should be -- issues around the expanding role of women in ministry, the inclusion and welcome of LGBTQ sons and daughters of God.

For some, the idea of a universal welcome, in which everyone is accepted regardless of who they are, is felt as destructive of the Church ‘s identity. They believe identity demands boundaries, but for others, the very heart of the church’s identity is to be open and welcoming.

Pope Francis wants us to be Church, the community of the disciples of Christ listening to the Spirit and continuing Christ’s mission in the world.

Now I think Pope Francis has a wonderful vision for our parish and for the whole Church – that we listen to each other, we learn from each other, and the workings of the Holy Spirit is to be found in our love for one another.

But going back to the gospel parable, it is easy for us to be the rebellious tenant farmers who get greedy and self-centered in the vineyard of the Church. We too easily find division and debate and tension in what the Church of Jesus should be. There are both critics of People Francis and people like myself think that is leadership of our Church is Spirit driven. Yes, the sinfulness that is in all of us can work havoc in the vineyard of the Lord.

 

What is the take home message of today’s Scriptures? We are tenants of this earth, stewards of what has been entrusted to our care. We are stewards of the church, entrusted with the awesome task of ministering to the needs of a broken and hurting world.  May we offer back to the owner of the vineyard a portion of the giftedness we have been given.

 

 

Have a Blessed Day.

Do the prayers we say lead us to love our neighbor, no exception?

 

Twenty Sixth Sunday in OT  A  2023

 

If you remember last week’s Gospel parable, it was rather shocking and seemingly unjust. The landowner sent workers to work in his vineyard at different hours of the day. The master then paid the workers who worked one hour the same pay as those who worked in the heat of the day all eight hours. It wasn’t fair. It is difficult, is it not, to give up the religion of merits and believe in the gratuitous love of God.

To repeat, it is difficult to give up the religion of merits and believe in the gratuitous love of God.

In today’s Gospel parable, a man had two sons whom he wished to send out to work in the vineyard. The first said initially no and later changed his mind and then went to work in the vineyard.  The second son said yes but did not go to work in the vineyard. Which of the two did his father’s will?

Today’s Gospel parable is a conversion story. A man said to his first son: ‘Son out and work in the vineyard today. He said in reply, ‘I will not go,’ but afterwards changed his mind and went. Saying yes to God means giving up one’s own thoughts and accepting His. Conversion happens in our lives when we open ourselves to God’s plan for our lives.

Conversion for ourselves is not a onetime happening in our lives but each and every day we are challenged in our discipleship of the Lord Jesus. On this day, are we opening ourselves up to God’s plan for our lives?

Where do we find ourselves in this Gospel parable?

The scribes and the Pharisees were ones who said yes to the kingdom of God as the religious elite. Their Achilles’ heel was their illusion of being saved by their pious religious practices, and yet Jesus in this parable is being very direct and confronting with the religious leaders of his day by saying the tax collectors and prostitutes were going to enter the kingdom of God first. The kingdom of God welcomes unexpected folks.

This parable challenges us as well:  what effect have our prayers and religious practices had on our daily life?

Are we motivated in our prayer to love our neighbor, no exceptions? Does our prayer enable us to let go our judgments and our negativity? Are we led to share more generous with people in need?

 

In the second Scripture reading, Paul begins his beautiful hymn to Christ by encouraging the Philippians to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. Paul writes: “Have in you the same attitude that was also in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; he humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross?”

What does it mean for you to have the same attitude as Jesus Christ? Are you in touch with your own conversion story? God calls us who are sinners, who have said no to God’s call in our sinfulness, but now may we open ourselves to the grace in our lives and trust more fully in the Lor Jesus.

In today’s Gospel parable, the father told his two sons to work in the vineyard today. As you pray over this gospel, into what vineyard is the Lord sending you today -- the vineyard of your family, of your neighborhood, of your parish? Into what vineyard is the Lord sending you to?

Indeed, the Lord sends us to the vineyard of supporting others in need throughout our 12-county diocese. We can do this by our generous support of the annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal.

This is the time of the year when we focus on the annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal --- CMA. The CMA reminds that we are all part of the bigger church…we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. We are called to a life of stewardship. We are to share what we have been given.

People are still poor, hungry in need of pastoral care, education, and employment. The faithful are in need of ministry and a vibrant parish life. Our youth and young adults are yearning to learn and grow in their relationship with Christ. The Church and our Diocese are in need of trained and educated seminarians, deacons, and pastoral leaders to our lead our Church into the future. We cannot close our eyes to these needs.

Our support of the CMA is part of our stewardship commitment to share our giftedness with people in need. I intend to increase my giving to the CMA this year. And I ask you to do the same if you are able.

We will never regret our generosity in supporting people in need.

Our parish goal this year is $87,000 to support the Catholic Ministries Appeal. Instead of this number as a mandate, may we see it as an opportunity to share what we have with those in need. Last year, we had 251 generous donors last year. Our goal this year is to exceed that number. Hopefully, you received a letter with a pledge from Bishop Matano and me this past week.  It would be great if you responded to the request in a timely manner. Or you can go to our parish website and give online or there are envelopes at the entrance of Church for your convenience.

May we all give in the spirit in which we have been blessed.  No amount is too large or too small.

Like the sons in the Gospel, are we saying yes or no to God’s way in our life? May a component of our conversion story be a desire to share, to share in supporting people in need in our diocese, in our commitment to building up the Church.

Have a Blessed Day.