THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

WORLD’S MISSIONS SUNDAY

 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”

 (Mt.22, 34-40)

 Rev. Alexander Diaz

Today the church celebrates World’s Missions Sunday.  I would like to invite everyone to go in depth about the meaning of this calling that has been given to us.  This date is a call for all of us to be mindful of the duty that was given to us in baptism, thru our parents and godparents, which we confirmed in the sacrament of confirmation, to be witnesses and announcers of the good news of Jesus, by manifesting an active solidarity with those men and women who announce and proclaim the message of salvation to everyone who does not know God or probably knew Him but have forgotten about Him.  

In this great day of World’s Missions, we have to be extremely conscious of our responsibility as witnesses of the Gospel, of our surroundings, familiar, laboral and as citizens.  Let us express our solidarity with the missionary missions around the world, giving a generous donation that will go in full to the missionaries, both men and women,  who proclaim the Word of Jesus in difficult circumstances. 

This Sunday’s readings talk to us about love..love in two dimensions:  To love God and love our neighbor.  On these two commands the will of God is entailed in the Sacred Scriptures.   Our relationship with God is vertical and our relationship with our neighbor is horizontal, as if forming a cross, in which both axles are indispensable.  They have to be together, one cannot be separated from the other.

Our love for God is not based on admiration, is in recognition of His majesty…the love for God is an answer: I love God because I feel loved by Him. That is the root of the “commandment”, also the essence of the Good News.  Deep down, the Good News is no more than this:  God loves you, as your mother loves you, but His love is infinite. 

This is an interior experience, not an intellectual knowledge.  Conversion is not a repentance, a change of ideas, a calculated decision.   Conversion is the consequence of a very deep rooted feeling, to feel loved by God changes life, changes hearts.  This change is conversion.     

Feeling loved by God not because we deserve it, but because we need it. God does not love me because I am good, just, a saint, God loves me, no more, as a mother loves her child, not because he is smart or good looking.  She loves him even before he is born, without knowing him.  That is how God loves me. 

Not even my many sins can change the love of God.  My mother’s love is so much stronger than my sins.  God is Love,  that is His essence.  It is the heart of the Good News of Jesus. Our Faith is based on believing Him.

God-love is the essence of the world.  The contrary of love is total death.  To love or die, love or destruction.  The essence of the human being is the capacity to build himself by loving. 

The error is to try and build human society over other foundations: violence, power, justice.  Justice is just a legal substitute or a consequence of love.  Justice alone is not human either.  No one can live of justice alone, because in the essence of the human being sin and error are needed, are mixed. Justice does not heal, does not change the insides of the human being.  True justice is to give every one what belongs to him. 

Pope Benedict, in respect to this affirms:  “The characteristic of the Christian civilization is Charity, the love of God that translates into love of neighbor.  Our love for God and our love for neighbor are inseparable.”  (Benedict XVI, 19-10-2008). 

The Lord tells us to:  “love our neighbor as ourselves”, and ¿what is to love oneself?  To love one-self is to look for our own good and our own pleasure.  That is the minimal measure the Lord ask of us to love our neighbor.  The point is that there is no difference between the love I have for myself and the love I have for others.  

This is a given among brothers, in the family.   Among brothers and in the family we use the first person of the plural rather than the first person of the singular.  This characterizes a marriage that really love each other,  very seldom they say “I” but instead they say “we”.   This is what makes the difference in a Christian.   To know who is God, to know who is the man, and to live for the good of others. 

To know and feel that this is the  best way to live for his own good.  It is the selfishness being corrected, to look for my own good and to discover it when I serve, to forget to look for my own good. In other words, to realize oneself in love, not in hate, not in my triumph over others. 

And let us remember that all the parables in the Gospel go on this direction.  The Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, that is to enter the Kingdom.   This is why, the unify proclamation of our faith is:  “We have discover (Jesus has discover for us) the secret for everything, the secret of God and the secret of the world: love is what moves everything for the good of all.”

To accept that God, that man, that living style, that is the Kingdom.   To love thy neighbor as thyself means to follow Jesus’ other advice:  “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Lc. 6,31).

We love ourselves so much, this is the minimal measure  the Lord set for our love for others, He also gave us a maximum measure, one He showed with His example:  ”Love one another as I love you”  (Jn. 15,12). He loved us more than He loved Himself, giving up His life for all of us.

AMEN!

Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.” 

  (Mt. 22,2-14)

Rev. Alexander Diaz

We all like to participate in a wedding feast, because we celebrate the love between two people who love each other.  Thru this feast, they manifest their compromise to God and in front of the community, this is why the closest friends and family are invited.  This Sunday, the twenty-seventh Sunday in ordinary time, we are presented with a wedding feast. But not a usual and common feast, it is a “Banquet of the Wedding” prepared by God our Lord for all the human beings at the end of times.

It is the love between the God of life and the human being, of whom God is the eternal lover.  This is about our salvation, our eternal happiness with Him forever in the Celestial Jerusalem, when God “wipe away all the tears, death will be no more, there will be no mourning, no moaning, no sadness”.

And we will live in complete and perfect happiness forever.  This is the celebration of the wedding of the Son of God with humanity.  And to this feast, we are all invited. But in Saint Matthew’s description, we see how some of them answer the invitation of the Lord and some do not, because they had more important things to do. “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come.  Some ignored the invitation, one went away to his farm, another to his business.” (Mt.22,1-14)

I ask myself ¿How many times we have done the same?  God calls us and instead of paying attention to His invitation, we turn our backs on Him.  We find a thousand excuses not to be with him, there are always multiples excuses to ignore His fantastic invitation and we pay more attention to things that are less important.  

We rather wash our hands, not be interested and make ourselves the important ones when it comes to the Lord’s business.   God offers us the opportunity to go to His Feast and have eternal happiness, to be happy forever and ¿how do we answer Him?  If we look and check ourselves deep down, we can see the importance we give to the things of the world and how we postpone, pass over the eternal things, when we do not accept the Lord’s invitation. 

¿Is is possible that the men and women of today have subsided so much to the world’s business that they consider a waste of time to think about God and His eternal life? And ¿What does the Gospel tells us about our acceptance to the invitation to the Celestial Banquet?  It is very clear, others will be invited in place of the ones that refused to assist. 

Today’s man has lost the illusion for the Kingdom of Heaven, he does not dream of being a saint, he does not think of the possibility of being with God for an eternity, he does not want to take the adventure to conquer heaven, because to him this seems like an utopia, to dream of something that does not exist, something invented, made up by ourselves.  Therefore, we prefer the passing happiness, money, wealth, power, pleasure, which is safer than to wait and participate in the eternal happiness in heaven.

St Luke, in relating the Celestial Feast, is more specific, he gives more details when the principal guests did not accept the invitation to the wedding feast, he tell us that: “then the Master of the house in a rage commanded His servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Lc.14, 22).  

These are the ones the world consider inadequate: the poor of heart - they know they have nothing if they don’t have God; the disabled, the handicapped - disabled in spirit – they know they cannot do for themselves, without the help of God; the lame - they know they need crutches that only God can provide; the blind - they know they need the light of God to be able to see. 

The wise according to the knowledge of this world, the proud, the conceited, the ones attached to the things of this world, attached to all material things,  take the risk of being invited and not assisting, they do not understand that the invitation of the Lord is infinitely more important than any other business, any other material worry, any earthly attachment. 

They take the risk, also, of not being dressed properly and being cast outside.  Not to be properly dressed means, not to have enough spiritual knowledge or preparation to be accepted in the Feast of Salvation. 

The wedding garments to which the Gospel refers to, is the sincerity and the truth of which we have to live constantly.  The invitation to the Celestial Banquet is for everybody, but many will not accept and others are not properly prepared.  Hence the sentence of Jesus at the end of the parable: “Many are invited, but few are chosen”

Remember, you are invited to the Wedding Feast, accept the invitation, because this feast will be forever, to which you are the principal guest, Jesus invites you, put on the garment of truth and authenticity.

!AMEN!

TWENTY SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

“Therefore, I say to you “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and

 given to a people that will produce its fruit”

Mt. 21, 33-43

Rev. Alexander Diaz

We are celebrating the twenty-seventh Sunday in ordinary time, Jesus keeps on explaining to us the Kingdom of God thru parables, thru those parables, He wants us to have knowledge of the truth.

This Sunday’s parable is known as the “homicidal tenants”, the Lord resumes the history of salvation. He compares Israel to a chosen vineyard, with a hedge around it, with a wine press in it, and a high watch tower, where the guard in charge of protecting it will stand.  God had spared no effort cultivating and beautifying His vineyard. 

He has given us all the resources, so we can work and develop this vineyard to the maximum. Each of the elements with which the Lord has prepared this vineyard has its own significance: the servants, sent to the vineyard by the Lord, are the Prophets, that throughout history have been responsible to announce the good news to the people. 

They were charged to ensure that the people increase their knowledge and be aware of the graces God was bestowing and providing on the vineyard.  To denounce to the people their small appreciation without the vision of all the graces that were given to them by the Lord.  

The Son is Jesus, killed outside the walls of Jerusalem, let us remembered, He was crucified on the Golgota, outside of the great city, condemned with scorn and hate by the tenants of the vineyard, who are the unfaithful Jews, the  Scribes and Pharisees, who thought themselves owners of the temple and the religion at that time.  Hence, forgetting that they had their positions by the mercy and grace of God, the creator and Lord of all. 

The other people, who will become tenants of the vineyard were the pagans, non-Jewish people.  They were looked down at, seeing with disdain and despised by the authorities of the time.  They were, after all, the ones who really listened and practiced the teachings  of Jesus.   The absence of the owner shows us, that God really confided His vineyard to Israel and its leaders.  From there comes the responsibility of these leaders and the demands of the owner to be accountable, hence the reason He sends His servants to obtain His produce.

Again He sends more servants, more numerous than the first ones, to claim what was justly owned Him, but they have the same fate as the first group.  This is in reference to the ill-treatment infringed, given to God’s prophets by the kings and high priests of Israel.   

St Matthew tells us in the Gospel passage that: “the high priests and the Pharisees, upon hearing the parables understood He was referring to them”.  Finally, the owner sends His own Son, thinking they were going to listen and respect Him. But when the tenants saw the Son, they said to one another:  “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire His inheritance”.  That was the despicable plan of the leaders of the Sinagogue, blinded by ambition and selfishness, they planned to become the owners of Israel by killing Jesus. 

For us, Christians of this time and all times, this parable is an exhortation for us to be more faithful to Christ.  Then we won’t reoffend God with the same offenses of the Jews in the parable.  

We should be aware of the gifts that God gives us.  This Sunday ‘s gospel invite us to reflect on the time and the gifts that God has given us throughout our lives.  Sometimes we become aware that our life is passing by and when we try to add the fruits we have given out for the good of the world, the Church and the souls, we end up with very poor and rickety results. 

¿What happened? ¿Have we used our intelligence, our will and the gifts we have received? ¿Have we lived like an abandoned vineyard without realizing that our mission was to produce sweet grapes?  ¿Or have we lived like the tenants of the vineyard, worrying about ourselves and not of the love that the vineyard owner felt? 

Times keeps passing on, while there is life, there is hope for true conversion, for real transformation. ¿How many people when confronted  by  Mother Theresa and taken to her house in Calcuta, discovered in those poor dying men and women, that they had to and were supposed to do something with their lives?   Let us not wait until tomorrow to discover this in our own lives. 

God expects a lot from us.  We are His vineyard, His favorite vineyard, and He is happy and glorified when we produce lots of fruits.   The fruits are in relation to our meekness and docility to the actions of God. 

Therefore, to give good fruits it is necessary to be meek to the plans of God.  Each one of us has his/her own vocation and have been situated in the precise place in the Church, we are where we are supposed to be.  Each one of us therefore, has a personal and not transferable mission.

We are not to carry out our mission any way we want or according to our whim.   Our fruitful and spiritual success is based on our obedience to God’s plan, as we can see it in the lives of all the Saints.

The secret is based on our identification with the obedient Christ, who suffers and gives His life for the rescue and the salvation of all men and women.   The spiritual fertility always goes thru the cross and the pain.  Whoever wants to be fruitful running away from this law of salvation is mistaken, and one day will end up bitterly disappointed.  

“Without the shedding of the blood, there will be no redemption.”     AMEN!!

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Thus the last will be first and the first will be last”

Mt.20,1-16

Rev. Alexander Diaz

Every Sunday the word leads us to face ourselves, to find ourselves, to find the valuable grace of God in our lives, to be able to see His love and mercy, His gratitude and His generosity for each and every one of us.  Today’s  readings as in all the previous Sunday’s readings, are amazing, incredible, because they show in a very clear and rich way the goodness and kindness of God. The reading from the book of the Prophet Isaiah presents God giving us as a gift, His total and free forgiveness.  The forgiveness the Lord gives to the ones who try to live in accordance with the demands of faith, is an act of mercy that has no comparison among human being.  God gives us the opportunity to look for Him and find Him, He is clear when He makes this call: ”Seek the Lord while he may be found” (Is. 55,6).  Lots of people ask themselves, as I have done in many occasions myself,  where is God, where is His presence and at the same time I realize, that He is closer than I think.  He places Himself in our path so we can find Him and follow His footsteps.   But we become blinded by our own complexes and whims.  All the opportunities He gives us have a just value and we should take advantage of them.   Only the one who take advantage of these opportunities will triumph completely in this life.  On the other hand, if we don’t take advantage of them, we are self-damning ourselves to fail and always stay behind.  Full of frustrations, in an act of cowardice in this absurd and senseless life.   Therefore, the call He makes us to look for Him,  is a call to be alert, to awaken us, to open our eyes and feel how close God is to us.  He is so close, that if we really perceived His presence, His look of love will vividly penetrate our hearts.  This is the reason why, in today’s gospel, Jesus presents us the example of the rich man who goes out, looking for the ones who have nothing to do, the ones who waste their time, because according to them, nobody wants to hire them. 

God goes out time and time again looking for each one of us, to hire us to come and work in His vineyard, at any time of our lives, he is always there to give us the opportunity to keep us working towards our own salvation.   Nobody can say, he is good for nothing, and should never say he was never called to work in the task to extend this kingdom of life. 

This parable really summons my attention, the generosity of God when making this call.  Some He calls in the morning, others at noon, yet others late in the evening.  The human logic and to a certain point to do justice in our human eyes, is that each one should receive was is rightfully theirs for the time worked, nevertheless God thinks different than all of us, He even tells us so in the first reading, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways”. (Is. 55,8), it is hard to accept and to understand.

Why is this? Jesus, who is the owner of the fields and relates the parable, does not explain to us the reason of this apparent “injustice”.  Therefore, to analyze and understand the message hidden in this story, we should realize, first of all that the Lord is not trying to give us a lesson in psychology about the moral of the salary.  The parable is not trying to stimulate the lazy ones not to work and the lukewarm to leave their conversion for a later date.  Instead He tries to indicate to us that God can call at any time, first thing in the morning, or late in the evening or even at midday or when He so desires and we should always be ready to respond no matter the time He calls us – be it the time it might be –without hesitation, without looking for excuses and without delaying our answer to Him.  The salary will be the same for all because Jesus is talking to us about our eternal salvation which is for everyone and anyone who wants to be and work in the Lord’s vineyard.

Jesus also wants to warn us about our jealousy, the sin of wanting what belong to others,  what they have should be ours instead, ours  alone.  This diabolic desire make us feel frustrated, mad, annoyed for the goods  received by others.   How many people literally destroy their fellow man with their hate, their excessive rancor caused by their jealousy.  They will destroy their neighbor because of the promotion received from the generosity of their superiors, or for the personal qualities that this particular individual have on his personal and integral development.  The Lord warns the jealous laborers that complained and demanded: “Are you envious because I am generous?”

God does not admit rivalry or jealousy among His children, He wants us to be happy with the goods that belong to our fellow man, as if they were ours. If not so, we are jealous, which is a sin, a hidden sin, one we feel very often, more than we might be aware of.  If we want to be faithful to the Lord, from the first hour, we have to be happy with the ones that come in the last hour.  We have to rejoice and be happy because these are the souls that are receiving their salvation.  And we have to also rejoice because the ones who came in early, had the opportunity to serve the Lord all their lives or most of their lives.   The final phrase is also controversial, but we should notice the fact that the Lord repeats it with great insistence in the Gospel, it refers to different situations: “The last will be first and the first will be last” (Mt. 19,30).  What is the significance of this sentence to the Lord? The first thing we should be aware of is that He does not say that the last are the only ones to get there and that the first will not get there.  Simply He inverts the time of arrival.  Hence, the most important thing is that everyone, the first and the last, will get there.  It signifies that God offers salvation to all: He welcomes the sinners and the non-believers that have just converted in the autumn of their lives.  At the same time, maintains with His Grace, those who since their childhood and youth have lived united to Him.

The final pay, today’s Gospel tells us, is not the quantity, the number of services we render that counts, but the love with which we do it. Eveything God gives us with His grace, we don’t deserve.  What He gives us is not a paycheck, but a gift, it is not a salary, but His Santifying Grace.  This gift of His Grace should encourage us to be more faithful to Him, to become Saints.  The Christian  should not go out looking for Christ  to receive a salary, but should work joyfully and be happy to serve God and our fellow men.   We should not think about the rewards or the compensation we will receive for our work and/or our services. We all have to learn from the mercy of God and His generosity.  To work for the Gospel is an honor. It is an honor to be called to participate in the adventure of bringing others closer to the presence of God.  Even if this means to cope with the heavy weight of each day. 

Don’t be afraid to live under God’s presence.           AMEN!!