Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
The Jews celebrate Yom-Kippur (the day of expiation)
Read more
Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
The Jews celebrate Yom-Kippur (the day of expiation)
First Reading
Isaiah 55,6-9
Psalmody
Psalm 145
Antiphon
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
My soul, give praise to the Lord;
I will praise the Lord all my days,
make music to God while I live.
Put no trust in princes,
in mortal men in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay
and their plans that day come to nothing.
He is happy who is helped by Jacob's God,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who alone made heaven and earth,
the seas and all they contain.
It is he who keeps faith for ever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
the Lord, who sets prisoners free,
the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord who protects the stranger
and upholds the widow and orphan.
It is the Lord who loves the just
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Zion's God, from age to age.
Second Reading
Philippians 1,20-24.27
all in accordance with my most confident hope and trust that I shall never have to admit defeat, but with complete fearlessness I shall go on, so that now, as always, Christ will be glorified in my body, whether by my life or my death. Life to me, of course, is Christ, but then death would be a positive gain. On the other hand again, if to be alive in the body gives me an opportunity for fruitful work, I do not know which I should choose. I am caught in this dilemma: I want to be gone and to be with Christ, and this is by far the stronger desire- and yet for your sake to stay alive in this body is a more urgent need. But you must always behave in a way that is worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come to you and see for myself or whether I only hear all about you from a distance, I shall find that you are standing firm and united in spirit, battling, as a team with a single aim, for the faith of the gospel,
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 20,1-16
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
With the Gospel parable we have read Jesus continues his teaching on the kingdom of God. The familiar imagery he uses tries to get us into the logic that prevails in his kingdom from now. This time he compares the kingdom to the owner of a vineyard who, worried about the grape harvest, leaves his house five times to call some workers and send them out to work. And he agrees with them - at least with the first ones - a denarius for the day. It was the ordinary pay for a working day.
At the end of the day, that "owner of the vineyard" - the evangelist calls him that as if to evoke the biblical sense of the vineyard as the people of God - calls his "manager" to start the payment from the last, who receive one denarius each. The first ones think they will receive more. But when they receive the same pay - the one agreed upon when they were hired - they begin to murmur against the master not so much because of the money they receive, but because the master treats them like the last. It is easy to imagine that the listeners of the parable (perhaps even us) share the feelings of those first workers. In effect, the master's gesture breaks the proportionality between reward and work done, without, however, contravening the just agreement. And herein lies the evangelical novelty, the new perspective of the kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate. There is indeed like a gulf between the Gospel and the law, between the mercy of that master and the justice of those workers.
And it is precisely this goodness that is the heart of the parable, the heart of the kingdom.
The Father in heaven has different eyes from us, he looks with boundless love on anyone who works in his vineyard, on anyone who is committed to the Gospel. And the pay is his 'money' that is equal for all. What does this one pay mean? It consists in working in the one vineyard and enjoying all its fruits. Even those who reach the last hour will be able to taste the full fruits of the kingdom of God. Indeed, we could say that, in the logic of the Gospel, it is impossible to diversify the wages of labourers. The master's love is for all. If there is a privilege, it is for the least. Even the workers of the last hour. The Lord gives to each according to his or her need. Yes, God measures his justice on the need of his children. This is the red thread that binds all the parables of mercy.
Meditating on this Gospel page helps us and urges us to enter the heart of God and understand the beauty of working for the Gospel and thus hasten the coming of God's kingdom in history. To Peter who asks what reward will be received by the one who has abandoned everything to follow him, we might say, for entering to work in the vineyard, Jesus replies: "They will receive a hundred times as much and inherit eternal life," recalling that "the last" and those who are with them, we might add, "will be the first."
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
