25th Sunday of Year A, September 24, 2023

 
“The real reward we receive working in God’s vineyard is not the salary's money, but the gift of a transformed heart, capable of sharing the Father's goodness.”

We pray therefore in this holy Mass that we labour to imitate Christ. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 55,6-9; Psalm 144 (145); Philippians 1,20c-24.27a; Matthew 20,1-16; 25th Sunday of Year A, September 24, 2023)

God's ways are not our ways (Isaiah reminds us today) just as his thoughts are not our thoughts. Between them there is the same distance that separates the sky from the earth. And yet, despite this distance, God draws close to our lives, he lets us find him if we seek him and he opens new ways to us, teaching us to walk his own paths.

The parables urge us to follow God's directives. By listening to them and meditating on them we will come to accept the invitation that Paul addresses to the Philippians: "Make yourselves worthy of the gospel of Christ" (Phil 1,27). The typical force of each parable becomes even more effective, almost discomforting and in the account of Matthew 20 very disconcerting. At the end of the parable, the owner of the vineyard - who is a metaphor for God - is forced to justify his behavior in front of the murmurs of the workers about him. Usually, in the Bible, it is men who have to justify themselves before God. Here it is the opposite. And it is important that it is so. We too have the right to ask God for explanation of many of his ways of acting that seem incomprehensible to us at first sight. God's answer, however, does not reach only our intelligence; it involves our life; it does not leave us as it found us. At the end of the parable, the master demonstrates to his workers that he has behaved justly, and he does so by making the workers who murmur against him righteous. He wishes to free them from their envious eye, to allow them to assume his own gaze.

Jesus' story presents us with this master going out at different times of the day to hire his workers. He continues to hire them even when it would seem too late: what's the point of calling someone to work for just one hour? And yet, even that single hour is important to that master. Even more important to him are those workers who at five o'clock in the afternoon have not found anyone to hire them to work. They tell him: "No one has hired us" (Matt 2,7). So it wasn't laziness that didn't allow them to find work, rather no one chose and called them. Whoever was rejected by others is now chosen by him. Furthermore, he will give everyone the wages agreed with the first hour workers, who immediately protest; and we easily understand why. Their recrimination (the parable states) stems from an envious eye (Matt 20,15) that is unable to let itself be surprised by the goodness of this master. However, he is not unjust, inasmuch as he does them no wrong: "Didn't you perhaps agree with me for a denarius?" (Matt 20,13), he tells them; however he does not limit himself to justice, but he goes beyond it to indicate that he is "good". The justice that first-hour workers would expect remains linked to a performance-retribution scheme: I've done a lot, you owe me a lot; to those who have done the least, you owe the least. But if we apply this scheme to our relationship with God, don't we end up disfiguring his face into that of a master? And what is more, we deform ours into that of servants? God is not a master, he is a Father; and we are not his servants, we are his children. The logic underlying our relationship with God cannot be of a servile or commercial nature, based on the sole criterion of just retribution. A different logic takes over, that of "Goodness". Reasoning according to human logic, and placing ourselves this time not from the point of view of the workers, but from that of the boss, we should conclude that he harms his own interests: as an employer, in fact, he would give one of his workers more than what he deserves. However, God does not base the relationship with his children on the basis of these calculations, but on his goodness, which is expressed, in particular, in the form of gratuitousness.

A question remains latent, which often surfaces in our hearts and corresponds to what the workers of the first hour murmur. What's the point of having worked so hard if you then receive the same reward? Luke's parable of the "merciful father" comes to our aid here, which replies to the protest of the eldest son: "Son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours" (Luke 15,31). The good fortune of having been called from the first hour of the day lies precisely in the communion offered to us with the Father's love. Everything that belongs to him he wants to be ours too, above all his gratuitousness towards everyone. The real reward we receive working in his vineyard is not the salary's money, but the gift of a transformed heart, capable of sharing the Father's goodness. In other words: we are granted the possibility of abandoning our ways to follow God's. Anyone who sets his heart on the reward demanded for his own merit risks being told: "Take your own, take what is rightfully yours, and go away" (cf. Matt 20,14). Instead, those who let their heart dwell in the goodness of the Father come to enjoy not the wages of the worker, but the communion of the son: “All that is mine is yours and you are always with me! “. Then we too can exclaim with Paul: "For me life is Christ" (Phil 1,21). Thus, to be with, and be like, Christ is the real gain! + John I. Okoye.

(graphics by chukwubike)

24TH SUNDAY, 17TH SEPTEMBER 2023

 
We implore the good Lord in this holy Mass to give us a heart of true mercy and forgiveness.  Help us to let go of all bitterness and pain we feel.  In place of these, give us true love and help us to offer love to others without reserve. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(SIR 27,33-28.9); PSALM 102 (103); ROMANS 14,7-9; MATT 18,21-35; 24TH SUNDAY, 17^TH SEPTEMBER 2023)

 

“If we live, we live to the Lord, if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's” (Rom 14,8). This belonging (which is not the fruit of our conquest, but of Jesus’ Passover, who died and rose “to be Lord of the dead and the living” (Rom 14,9) is also a belonging to a different horizon, that overturns our most obvious ways of thinking and acting. Being of the Lord means living in a different space, no longer designed by our criteria of discernment, but by his own feeling, in which we are allowed to graft ourselves, like a branch in the vine (cf. John 15, 1-8). A different lymph /liquid flows, therefore, in our veins and gives a new breath to our existence. Jesus reveals it to us through the parable with which he answers Peter's question about forgiveness. “Up to seven times”: it is the measure that Peter imagines in his generosity: and it is already a superabundant measure. In Judaism it was believed that forgiveness should be granted no more than four times. Peter, therefore, goes far beyond this limit. Yet Jesus announces to him a different measure: “Up to seventy times seven” (Matt 18,22). We must not hear in these words only the tone of a strong need; above all there is the power of a gift that is given to us. In fact, Jesus accompanies his answer with the story of a parable, and the parables, we know, not only have the intention of better explaining what Jesus intends to say, they above all have the purpose of revealing how the proximity of the kingdom of God to our life can truly transform us, opening our existence to otherwise unexpected horizons.

The parable that Jesus narrates to Peter revolves around three scenes. In the first, two characters are on stage: a king and his servant, who owes an enormous debt to his lord, ten thousand talents; an astronomical amount even for a king. The king demands the repayment of the debt, but faced with the plea of his servant, he takes pity and forgives everything. In the second scene we find this same servant in relationship with another servant. This time it is he who is the position as the creditor, but the sum is far more modest: only one hundred denarii. However, this servant is not moved and has his unfortunate debtor thrown in prison. This brings us to the third scene, in which the king returns to the scene who, having learned of what has happened, demands the repayment of the previously forgiven debt and has his servant thrown in prison until he has repaid all due.

This is the story told by Jesus. We know it well and it doesn’t surprise us that much. However, let’s pretend, at least for a moment, that we don't know it in all its development. We look at the second scene, as if the first scene had never happened and the parable started from here. Well, the behavior of the servant towards his debtor ends up appearing just to us, or at least understandable. Indeed, it is obvious, according to worldly logic, that a creditor sooner or later demands the repayment of what he has lent. Here there is no case of usury: a sum has been loaned and it is within the creditor's right to ask for its repayment. However, if we re-read this second scene in the light of the first, everything changes! The fact that the first servant received such a generous pardon from his master now makes his behavior towards the other servant absurd, inadmissible, even hateful. What happens in the first picture was supposed to transform, even overturn, what happens in the second.

The way God relates to us must radically transform our way of relating to others. This is the foundation of forgiveness. It's not in my good heart, it's not in the fact that the other deserves it or doesn't deserve it; it lies rather in the fact that God forgives me and his mercy becomes true and effective in my life when it not only erases my sin but generates in me a new life, capable of forgiving as I have been forgiven. If this doesn't happen, we nullify God’s forgiveness in our lives, we make it fruitless. God does not take back his gift, which when it is given, is given forever (because his gifts are irrevocable (cf. Rom ans11,29), but it is our attitude not to welcome him, rather to expel him from the horizon of our existence. Twice, in Jesus’ account, he resounds the expression: “Have patience with me” (Matt 18,26.29); more faithfully we should translate: “Show me the breadth of your heart”. The breadth of God's heart should expand the spaces of our lives, to make them welcoming, free, and available to host the other, even with its load of faults and sins. If this does not happen, our heart, from an open and wide home, becomes narrow and narrow like a prison cell, which imprisons us with the chains of which we are reminded today by Sirach: our acts of revenge, our rancors, our own hatreds. Forgiveness instead, is a school of freedom because it broadens our life according to the breadth of God’s heart. Not up to seven, but up to seventy times seven! + John I. Okoye.

(graphics  by Chukwubike)

23rd Sunday of Year A, September 10, 2023

 

Forgiveness, in God’s vision, is not limited to erasing the past, but generates a different life in the future, renewed by that love which is the fullness of the Law.”

We pray therefore in this holy Mass, that we learn to always look out for our straying brothers and sisters, be willing to forgive those who trespassed against us, and that we ourselves may also receive forgiveness for our failings. Happy Sunday!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Ezekiel 33,1.7-9; Psalm 94 (95); Romans 13,8-10; Matt 18,15-20; 23rd Sunday of Year A, September 10, 2023)

“Do not owe anyone anything except mutual love” (Rom 13,8). Paul uses here the same verb with which Jesus taught us to pray in the Our Father, when he urges us to forgive our neighbours the debts, they owe us so that God will forgive us our own debts (cf. Matt 6,12). Combining the two texts, we sense how the only debt we owe to others, that of mutual love, is expressed in a culminating way precisely in the willingness to forgo debts, that is, to forgive. It is not for nothing that Jesus places at the foundation of the Christian community pardon which must be given not only seven times (as Peter would have it) but “seventy times seven” (Matt 18,22). We will listen to these words of Jesus next Sunday, when the liturgy proclaims the conclusion of chapter 18 of Matthew.

To this same chapter belongs today's passage, centered on the theme of fraternal correction, which immediately precedes the reflection on forgiveness. It seems to Jesus that community life is built on the basis of this wise relationship between correction and forgiveness. The verses we are hearing today, in fact, are placed at the heart of the community discourse of this eighteenth chapter. Immediately before, Jesus had reminded his disciples that at the center of the community there were the little ones and, among them, sinners, who must be looked for just like the shepherd in the parable does, willing to leave ninety-nine sheep on the mountains, to look for the one sheep lost (cf. Matt 18,12-14). A concrete way of doing this is constituted precisely by fraternal correction, through which the whole community seeks out the lost person in order to regain him or her in the communion of the flock. On the other hand, the text on correction introduces the verses that follow, which focus on the theme of forgiveness, which must always be given, on every occasion. Forgiveness, in God’s vision, is not limited to erasing the past, but generates a different life in the future, renewed by that love which is the fullness of the Law. It is also done through a wise and fraternal correction, eager to give those who have made a mistake not only forgiveness, but a new life. It is therefore necessary that forgiveness and correction are lived in the right relationship with each other. We are often tempted to put correction before forgiveness, and we say, “I am willing to forgive you if you accept my correction and change your ways.” Instead, Jesus invites us to reverse the perspective. Forgiveness is always to be given, on every occasion, but it must then generate a word that makes it fruitful in the life of those who make mistakes. Correction allows forgiveness, already granted, to become a source of new life in the existence of those who accept it. We know well how the processes of conversion and rebirth are slow and gradual. Likewise, both forgiveness and correction require the patience of time. Successive stages are needed, in which a growth of the word takes place. At first, it is a personal word; then it becomes the word of two or three witnesses; finally, it becomes the word of the community.  In this way, it is as if the word were purified, sifted, subjected to a progressive discernment. Moreover, the culminating word is that of prayer. If the other words have remained sterile and unproductive due to the hardness of heart of those who have not wanted to listen to them, there is one word that remains effective and that is the word of supplication.

God the Father, unlike men, is the one who always listens; provided that what we address to him is an unanimous word, pronounced by a community gathered in the name of Jesus. It is significant that what leads to the word of agreement (therefore to the agreement of the community) is precisely the sin, even the obstinate one, of the brother. Sin always has a disruptive violence, such as to break communion and compromise relationships. For Matthew, on the contrary, the community is evangelical when it is capable of agreeing, and therefore of building itself in a unanimous way in praying for the brother who is wrong. The main concern for the community must be that of “winning one's brother” (Matt 18,15); but we could say (broadening the horizon) that it is the fraternity itself that must be earned. It is not a reality that has already been given, acquired once and for all, but must be earned again, going through those lacerations that compromise it and obscure its face. What really builds fraternity is not so much the ability to avoid conflicts, whether small or large but the willingness to regain peaceful relationships within the tensions that inevitably arise. Abba John Kolobos said: “It is not possible to build a house from the top down, but from the foundations up”. He was asked, “What does this word mean?” He then elaborated, “The foundation is your neighbour, which you must earn. This is the first duty on which all the commandments of Christ depend”. It is not a question of carrying out an ideal project of fraternity; instead, we need to start from the foundations, gaining the brother, that is, responding to the concrete brother who challenges me and often disturbs me with his request, his need, his own sin. 

+ John I. Okoye.

{graphics  by Chukwubike OC}