The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
                                                                                    September 24, 2023
                                                                                                                        Fr. José Maria de Sousa Alvim Calado Cortes, F.S.C.B.
                                                                                                                                                                          

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Sunday Reading Meditations

   The Sermon on the Mount, also known as the Beatitudes, was Jesus' first programmatic speech, his inaugural address, in which he synthetically expressed the essential core of his mission. 

  In today's Gospel, Jesus tells a parable about the kingdom of heaven.  In this parable, a landowner invites laborers to work in his vineyard at different times of the day: dawn, nine o'clock, noon, thee o'clock and five o'clock.  When the moment of payment arrives, those who had started working at dawn become indignant because they received the same amount of money as those who started working at five in the afternoon.
 
  In this parable, we see God as someone who constantly takes the initiative, inviting us to work in his vineyard, I.e., to commit ourselves to him and his work.

   There are people who start working at dawn, like Mary and Joseph.  Then there are people who start working at noon, like Peter and the apostles, and then there are those who start working at the last hour of the day, like the good thief who heard from Jesus' mouth "I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

  Some of the workers were surprised because at the end of  the day, they all received the same payment.  Some of them felt wronged because they worked more hours than the others.  We should never compare ourselves to others.  When we do that, we open the door to envy: "Are you envious because I am generous?"  (Mt 20:12).

  God gives us everything.  He gives us himself.  At each moment of the day, God himself is the recompense for our commitment to him.  In today's reading, we heard the testimony of a great worker in the vineyard of the Lord, someone who had not started working at dawn. Saint Paul was not a worker of the first hour but found full recompense for all his efforts in Christ: “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain” (Phil 1:21).

  The encounter with Christ totally changes Paul’s life: “For to me life is Christ.” Paul profoundly experienced the salvific power of Christ in his life. Jesus was a real person, with whom he had an actual relationship.

  Can we assert with Saint Paul: “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain”? Maybe not. Maybe for us life is so many other things. Nevertheless, to be able to echo Paul’s assertion is the goal of Christian life. How can we get there? We constantly need to welcome God’s initiative and let him transform our existence. In order to let this happen, we need to keep the search for God alive in our hearts.

  In today’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah says: “Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near” (Is 55:6). Although we are far from the ideal proclaimed by Saint Paul, we can always count on God’s mercy, we can always turn to the merciful Lord: “Let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving” (Is 55:7).

  The psalm says: “The Lord is near to all who call upon him” (Ps 145:2). The closeness of God allows us to be at peace. God constantly takes the initiative in reaching out to us. At every moment of our lives, we can welcome his invitation to work in his vineyard. Let us answer this great call generously.  Amen.