Today’s Scripture readings use the imagery of a vineyard to
describe God’s love for us. In the first
Scripture from the prophet Isaiah, the house of Israel is God’s vineyard. In the Gospel parable the vineyard is the
reign of God. God goes to great length
to prepare wondrous blessings for the vineyard.
But the tenants to whom the vineyard is entrusted got greedy and wanted
everything for themselves. The message
is that God’s reign will be transferred to new tenants -- both Jews and
Gentiles. The Gospel states the God’s
blessings will endure, even if bestowed on other people.
A key message to this Gospel parable is who are the tenant
farmers with closed and greedy hearts?
Who are the people that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from and
given to other people who will produce its fruit?
It’s easy to identify the tenant farmers as the chief
priests and the elders of the people in the time of Jesus – the unfaithful
Israelites? But we also need to
recognize ourselves in the Gospel parable.
In our prayer where are we in this Gospel parable?
How about the vineyard of our own lives? Just as God cares for the vineyard in Isaiah,
so God cares for the vineyard of our lives.
We are nurtured by God’s Word, fed at God’s table, helped by the
commandment of love. All we need do is
let God tend us and bring us to produce good fruit. All we need do is be faithful; God will take
care of the rest.
My question for your reflection: What is the produce from
your vineyard? How do you give it back
to God, the landowner?
The following are some questions for us to ponder as we
reflect on the vineyard of our own hearts that God has blessed.
This is RESPECT LIFE SUNDAY.
In the words of Pope Francis, each of us is a masterpiece of God’s
creation. Do we stand for the dignity of
all human life? Do we clearly and
unmistakably stand against abortion as the unjust taking of precious human
life? Do we stand for the dignity of
human life before birth? Do we stand for
the preciousness of human life after birth as well -- in all its forms?
Today the Extraordinary Synod on the Family begins in the
Vatican. How do we as individuals and as
a parish support family life? Do we
everything possible to encourage families to come together to worship at our
Sunday Eucharist? How can be even more
family friendly? In our faith formation
programs, how do we encourage family prayer and family faith formation? How can
we do it better than we do? Is our parish known as a family friendly parish?
Bishop Matano has called to be financially generous in
supporting the diocesan Catholic Ministry Appeal (the CMA). Again, going back to the tenant farmers in
the Gospel parable, are we greedy and want to reject our support of the vineyard
of the kingdom of God or do we wish to give back to the God who has generously
loved us? How we use our financial
resources is very much a spiritual question.
All we have been given; we have been given to share.
In today’s second Scripture reading, St Paul writes: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything by
prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.
Ask for what we need, and ask with a thankful heart….Jesus
insists that gratitude must be an accompaniment to our prayer, and that if we
approach him with a grateful spirit, God's peace will keep our hearts and
minds safe.
The diocesan theme for the CMA is taken from the
spirituality of St. Paul. We are to live
life with an attitude of gratitude. We are to give to the CMA with an attitude
of gratitude. We are to support pro-life values from birth to death with an
attitude of gratitude. We are to
prayerfully support the Vatican Synod on the Family with an attitude of
gratitude. Our family life is a
precious, precious gift that has been given to us. We gather at Eucharist so that we can give
thanks to the Lord our God.
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.
We 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 in what you possess but in what you are willing to
give away.
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