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VANITY OF VANITIES

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THURSDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccles 1:2-11; Ps 90:3-6,12-14,17; Lk 9:7-9 The Vanity of Life outside the Vineyard Many of us are familiar with the frustration of not having the right instrument or equipment for a particular task. Consider, for example, attempting to loosen a nut without the right spanner. One can injure oneself or destroy the bolt and nut in the attempt. The same applies when we live to pursue earthly things and passing amusements and pleasure. These engagements may provide momentary pleasures or amusement, but these do not last because our lives are not made for creatures. The life we have received is a mystery and something beyond our comprehension. But to sound its depth, we must acquire the right key or access code to unlock the door of life and its meaning. As we have noted previously in our reflections, we are the vineyard of God, the inheritance of his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can unlock the meaning of our lives and give us ...
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WE ARE THE SON'S INHERITANCE

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SAINT PIUS OF PIETRELCINA (PADRE PIO), PRIEST Prov 30:5-9; Ps 119:28,72,89,101,104,163; Lk 9:1-6 The Vineyard of the Son of God The vineyard of the God of the hosts is the Son’s inheritance. The Son is one with the Father and knows the Father’s will. Thus, he cultivates the vineyard to the Father’s taste. The vineyard is his inheritance, for all that the Father has belongs to the Son. The Son is the Word, and the Word was with God from the beginning; through him all things were made. Since all things were made through him, all things will be restored to the Father through him. John tells us that the Word enlightens all men who come into the world. Therefore, the Son calls and instructs all who are employed to work in the vineyard. We are the vineyard of the Lord; the work to be done in us must be carried out with the Son’s specification. To be unwilling to work in the vineyard is to attempt to usurp what is not ours, but the Son’s inheritance. To put it simply, our temporal lives...
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FAITHFULNESS IN THE VINEYARD

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TUESDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Prov 21:1-67,10-13; Ps 119:1,27,30,34-35,44; Lk 8:19-21 Our Employment in the Vineyard We are the vineyard of the God of Hosts. God seeks out all who are willing and eager to earn the day’s wage and employs them in the divine vineyard. God employs all who are employable and willing to work in his vineyard. Being part of God's vineyard implies that our primary work is within us, cooperating with God's grace to become members of Jesus Christ, the true vine. God employs us, as cooperators, to do his work within us and to work with us round and about us. Hence, God requires all who enter his service to die to self ritually and intentionally through the sacrament of baptism. Without this sacramental initiation, we cannot gain access to the Lord’s vineyard and take part in the work therein. This is the initial contract God agrees with us. We give ourselves in his vineyard, and God remunerates us with a denarius, the wage for a day’s l...
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OUR NEED FOR HEALING

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SAINT MATTHEW, APOSTLE, EVANGELIST Eph 4:1-7,11-13; Ps 19:2-5; Mt 9:9-13 The Physician for the Weak and the Sick Celebrating the feast of Saint Matthew the Evangelist, a former tax collector, allows us to delve deeper into the meaning of our Lord’s parable of the workers in the vineyard. As we noted in yesterday’s reflection, as the landowner, God goes about in search of willing and ready labourers to employ in his vineyard. To work in the vineyard of the Lord, the Church, means to cooperate with God’s grace in building the Church. Thus, God does the fundamental work within our souls, for we make up the vineyard of the Lord as members of the Church. Being in the marketplace, the world, makes us all weak and sick because of sins. The Lord himself seeks and finds us to bring us into his vineyard. Saint Augustine distinguished between the weak and the sick in his sermon on pastors. “Weak men are those who appear to be zealous in doing good works but are unwilling or unable to endure...
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REWARD BEYOND COMPREHENSION

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SUNDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Isa 55:6-9; Ps 145:2-3,8-9,17-18; Phil 1:20-24,27; Mt 20:1-16 The Reward of Eternal Life God made us in his image and willed from all eternity to bless us with his own life. The divine gift would make us like God. This was the decision of the Triune God from the very beginning, when he said in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” Making man in divine image means giving him free will, which arises from the rationality of our nature. Our rationality demands that we freely choose to be like God. To be truly free to make the decision, man needs the enlightenment of knowledge of God, which comes from the Word of God. Man’s knowledge of God requires time to engage with the Word. But the Word is God. Man needs to be guided to divine knowledge through creation, which manifests God’s glory and his divine attributes. For this reason, man needs to work in God’s vineyard to discover himself through knowledge of creatures and be...
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CELEBRATING THE EUCHARIST WITH GAIN

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SATURDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Cor 15:35-37,42-49; Ps 56:10-14; Lk 8:4-15 Making Profit from the Gospel Our Eucharistic celebration, which we understand as a ritual presentation of the Gospel of salvation, mediates the coming together of the Gospel as revealed divine truth and our human life on earth. The revealed truth, the Gospel, is spiritual life; our human life on earth is death because of the corruption of sin. The Eucharistic liturgy provides the occasion for the mingling of the two, so that life will gradually swallow death, and light will chase away darkness. The Eucharistic celebration is comparable to a seed nursery where the seed of the Gospel is first sown and nurtured in us in a controlled spiritual ambiance before we carry it to our different life situations. In the Eucharistic liturgy, we are supercharged with divine grace conducive to the growth of spiritual life. The liturgical ambiance, replete with divine words, gestures, sacramental signs, an...
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THE EUCHARIST CELEBRATES THE GOSPEL

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SAINT JUAN MACIAS, RELIGIOUS 1 Cor 15:12-20; Ps 17:1,6-8,15; Lk 8:1-3 The Church and the Gospel In our previous reflection, we highlighted the relationship between the Gospel and the Church. We consider the Church as the Gospel believed and lived. We enrich our membership in the Church through a deeper understanding of the Gospel, and we understand the Gospel more through a better participation in the life of the Church. The core of the Church’s life is the Eucharistic celebration. The Eucharist is the font of the Church’s spirituality and life. As we noted yesterday, the Eucharistic celebration outlines our redemptive process, which is contained in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very commencement of the Eucharistic celebration, with the invocation of the Trinity and the sign of the cross, offers a summary of what will happen through the celebration. The Gospel is the initiative of the Triune God, who willed to redeem us from our sin, death, and evil by restoring us to ...
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