Parable of the wicked tenants

Prepare for Mass – 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Today’s Readings
Listen to today’s readings

God has planted his people Israel in a vineyard.  Life seems to be hard and unfair working in this vineyard.  The tenants are wicked.  They’re not very nice at all.  They even seized the landowner’s son, through him out and killed him.

The landowner is God.  The vineyard, the cultivated field tilled by God, is the Church.  The son is the true vine, Jesus.  The lifegiver gives fruitfullness to the branches.  Without living in Christ, we cannot produce any fruit.  Through the Church we remain in Christ, our only hope. For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever.

We go about our daily lives, in everything with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, making our requests known to God. It is by living in Christ, the cornerstone, that we find the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds. While knowing the peace of God in our lives during the difficult challenges, disappointments, and struggles we face, we are able to “keep on keeping on” bearing the difficulties of daily life in the vineyard.

A reflection on the Gospel of the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Father Ted Tyler from Australia.  For more from Fr Ted Tyler, visit his website at http://www.catholic-church.org/ejtyler

Let the peace of God reign

Where is the love

The parable of the tenants

God rewards acts of repentance

Prepare for Mass – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Today’s Readings
Listen to today’s readings

When we fall into serious sin, it is good to recall the mercy and compassion of God, have a conversion of heart, and come to realize that our own way may not be the best for us.

Ez 18:25-28

You say, “The LORD’S way is not fair!” Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?
When a virtuous man turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.
But if a wicked man, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins which he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

Remain in sin and die, repent and you shall live. Make use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is where where we find the power and grace of God and strength to turn away from sin. Trusting in the goodness and grace of God, we ask for forgiveness. We are given the opportunity to start again, accept his forgiveness, and by his grace, we will merit eternal life.

St Paul in Philipians 2 remarks on how Jesus being in the form of God didn’t regard equality with God, he emptied himself entirely, putting aside any self interest, obedient even to death on a cross. Phil 2:9-11 — Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In the parable of the two sons, we see that one son made a bad choice by disobeying and later thought better of it while the other son said he was going to obey, but didn’t. The first son, after reflection realized he’d made a mistake, thought of his father’s needs, put his self second, and by doing so, he did the father’s will. He may have wanted to do something much more fun that day, but he came to the conclusion that putting his own self interests aside was the right thing to do.

Father Ted Tyler reflects on the parable of the two sons
More from Father Tyler from his website at http://www.catholic-church.org/ejtyler

The Two Sons from Jeff Kashat’s youtube site
part 1

part 2

Psalm 25
A song on Psalm 25 by Steve Bell

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) song by Chris Tomlin; video by Michelle Matylda Teh

Parable of the laborers in the vineyard

Prepare for Mass – 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Todays Readings

The Lord is near to all who call upon him in truth – Ps 145:18. 
Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near – Is 55:6
and turn away from things that are bad for us and cling to his mercy and compassion. His ways are far above our ways.  

Is 55: 6-9

Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near.

Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked man his thoughts; Let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Paul in Phil 1:20-24 discusses living in Christ and dying with Christ.  “Christ will be magnified in my body whether by life or by death” Phil 1:20c.  He speaks about living in the flesh as fruitful labor.

Jesus tells a parable of the landowner who hires people to labor in the field.  The ones who start late are treated with the same compassion as those who labor all day.  This shows the tremendous compassion God has for all people.  In this parable we are reminded by the landowner searching for laborers throughout the day of how God searches for us throughout our lives.  As we work and labor throughout life doing good deeds are we compassionate for people who in the eleventh hour are called into labor or are we upset with envy by God’s generosity?

Laborers in the vineyard – Justin Allard

Homily – Fr Bonaventure – The Parable of the Vineyard

Pope Benedict General Intentions February 2008 – Kristy Linnhoff

Marie Bellet – Ordinary Time

Psalm 145
Photographic depiction of Psalm 145 from YouTube user marghut

More Psalm 145 videos…

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Prepare for Mass – Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – Today’s Readings

Ever since sin entered the world, sacrifice was offered up to God. These bloody sacrifices, though noble and pleasing to God were not sufficient to redeem us of our sins. In the true and everlasting sacrifice, God offered up his son as sacrifice. God himself who did not sin took on the burden of sin from all human beings all across time.

We are asked to unite ourselves into the supreme sacrifice.  We are to pickup or little crosses and offer them in reparation for our sins and the sins of the world.  Some crosses we face are a result of our own sin.  Other crosses come to us from sins of others.  Some crosses come to us from unknown sources.  As we look upon the cross in the great Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 9/14, we can be assured that anything we will face has been conquered already.

When thinking about God dying on a cross for our sins, we understand that our God is much more powerful than us and that we are poor sinners desperately in need of redemption.  On our own we have no chance for redemption. 

Looked at more deeply this sign, which forces us to look at the dangerousness of man and all his heinous deeds, at the same time makes us look upon God, who is stronger, stronger in his weakness, and upon the fact that we are loved by God. It is in this sense a sign of forgiveness that also brings hope into the abysses of history… God is crucified and says to us that this God who is apparently so weak is the God who incomprehensibly forgives us and who in his seeming absence is stronger.
- Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI

Triumph of the Cross – As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up.

Worthy is the Lamb
by Darlene Zschech

Thank you for the Cross

Everlasting – (John 3:16)
Written by Scott Johnson, sung by John Waller. The band is “According to John”.