FAITHFULNESS IN THE VINEYARD


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 labour. It means that we use our mortal day to work for God, to achieve his divine will in us and about us, and he rewards us with the wage of eternal day. To live eternally, we must possess divine life; this is exactly what God gives us as our remuneration for faithfulness in his vineyard. God is not only just but most generous towards us, his creatures.

Our God wants us to prove our faithfulness in a little thing that is not ours, as our Lord Jesus reveals in Lk 16:12, so that he will give us what is truly ours. Our short mortal life is not ours; it is given to us on trust, for we must give it back with time. The deluded grasp it as if it were eternal and ours always; hence, they are unwilling to be employed in the vineyard of God. But the wise understand how short our life is, and wait on God for divine employment to earn what would last them eternally. The Psalmist prayed for this necessary wisdom, to understand how short our life really is, in Ps 90:12-14. As Proverbs affirms, the Lord is pleased when we seek this wisdom to work uprightly. “To act virtuously and with justice is more pleasing to the Lord than sacrifice.” The ultimate sacrifice pleasing to God is to seek employment in his vineyard, for he searches for labourers everywhere. Thus, Augustine describes all those who are intent on doing good but not ready to suffer pains as weak; and those with evil desires preventing them from doing good as sick, needing the Heavenly Physician. Proverbs reveals the intention of the sick: “The wicked man’s soul is intent on evil; he looks on his neighbour with dislike.” The sick cannot be employed in the vineyard for their souls suffer spiritual paralysis caused by evil desires. They need divine healing first.

The weak are employable because of their desire to do good. The weakness would be taken care of by the Lord’s grace. We do not pray to fall sick as we are already employed in the vineyard of the Lord. But if, perchance, we fall sick, we are to hurry to the Sacrament of Confession, where Jesus Christ restores the spiritually dead to spiritual life. If we are weak, we should make the Psalmist’s words ours. “I have chosen the way of truth with your decrees before me. Train me to observe your law, to keep it with my heart. Guide me in the path of your commands; for there is my delight. I shall always keep your law for ever and ever.” By making this prayer ours, God will actively employ us in his vineyard, changing our minds and hearts into Christ’s own. All who are employed in the vineyard of the Lord have received a kingly vocation, and their hearts are in God’s hand. “Like flowing water is the heart of the king in the hand of the Lord, who turns it where he pleases.” In the vineyard of the Lord, we work not by ourselves, but God works through us. Our Lord teaches this in the Gospel when he replied to those who told him of his mother and brothers’ intention to see him. “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.” God’s will for us is that we work in his vineyard. May we take his word to heart today and put it into practice.

Let us pray: O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred Law upon love of you and of our neighbour, grant that, by keeping your precepts, we may merit to attain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.         

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GOD IS LOVE

Image
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS   Deut 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4,6-8,10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30 Great Things hidden from the Wise We celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is a mystery, as coming from the mystery of the Son of Man. The human heart of Jesus Christ is a symbol and reality of the love of the Son of Man for his brothers and sisters. It is a human representation of the heart or love of the Son of God for us, his own people and creatures. As he revealed in Heb 2:14, that he took on our nature, that he may share everything in common with us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.” The Father brought us into existence to be the inheritance and the companions of His Beloved Son. The love of the Son for his own could not let him be, but made him take on our nature and appear among ...
Read more

CALLED TO KNOW AND PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

Image
THE CONVERSION SAINT PAUL, APOSTLE Acts 22:3-16; Ps 117; Mk 16:15-18 Proclamation of the Gospel of the New Covenant Celebrating the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul brings us to a deeper reflection on the meaning and implication of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. As Paul himself narrated in the first reading to his people in Jerusalem, he was so zealous in the practice of Judaism, the religion of his fathers, that his eyes were closed to the new realities and relations God had brought into existence. Though these new realities and relations were prophesied by the prophets and the Law pointed to them, Paul and many of his contemporaries were blind to them. His words are: “I am a Jew and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you are today.” These words of Paul testify that zeal without the knowledge of the will o...
Read more

ESTABLISHING OURSELVES IN HIS PRESENCE

Image
THE 6TH DAY OF OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS     1 Jn 2:12-17; Ps 96:7-10; Lk 2:36-40 Recognising the Incarnate Word for Self The Church, in the opening prayer, prays for the new revelation of God in the flesh to commence its purpose of setting us free from the bondage of sin and servitude to evil. The fact of the Incarnation means that human nature is redeemed in principle, by God joining it to the Eternal Word in a hypostatic union. The Lamb, the Word in human flesh, is already sacrificed to God, waiting for the consummation of the sacrifice on Calvary. Thus, He already started the work of redemption in principle, each of us must now appropriate the result of the redemption. The purpose of his appearance in human flesh is that he may enter our minds as God, who created us in love. He comes to receive us back into his company; this requires he enters the temple within each of us. We must recognise what he has already done for the love of us and respond in a similar gesture b...
Read more