Twenty-fifth
Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 133
Reading 1
Seek the LORD while he may be found,
call him while he is near.
Let the scoundrel forsake his way,
and the wicked 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.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (18a) The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
The LORD is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.
For to me life is Christ, and death is gain.
If I go on living in the flesh,
that means fruitful labor for me.
And I do not know which I shall choose.
I am caught between the two.
I long to depart this life and be with Christ,
for that is far better.
Yet that I remain in the flesh
is more necessary for your benefit.
Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of
Christ.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Open our hearts, O Lord,
to listen to the words of your Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus told his disciples this parable:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner
who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.
Going out about nine o’clock,
the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard,
and I will give you what is just.’
So they went off.
And he went out again around noon,
and around three o’clock, and did likewise.
Going out about five o’clock,
the landowner found others standing around, and said to them,
‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’
They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’
He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’
When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman,
‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay,
beginning with the last and ending with the first.’
When those who had started about five o’clock came,
each received the usual daily wage.
So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more,
but each of them also got the usual wage.
And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,
‘These last ones worked only one hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
He said to one of them in reply,
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092020.cfm
Meditation: Do
You Begrudge My Generosity?
What
can work and wages, welfare and the unemployed tell us about the kingdom of
God? In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard we see the extraordinary
generosity and compassion of God (Matthew 20:1-16). There is great tragedy in
unemployment, the loss of work, and the inability to earn enough to live and
support oneself or one's family. In Jesus' times laborers had to wait each day
in the marketplace until someone hired them for a day's job. No work that day
usually meant no food on the family table. The laborers who worked all day and
received their payment complain that the master pays the late afternoon
laborers the same wage. The master, undoubtedly, hired them in the late
afternoon so they wouldn't go home payless and hungry.
God is generous and gives us work for his kingdom
God is generous in opening the doors of his kingdom to all who will enter, both
those who have labored a life-time for him and those who come at the last hour.
While the reward is the same, the motive for one's labor can make all the
difference. Some work only for reward. They will only put in as much effort as
they think they will get back. Others labor out of love and joy for the
opportunity to work and to serve others. The Lord Jesus calls each one of us to
serve God and his kingdom with joy and zeal and to serve our neighbor with a
generous spirit as well.
Empowered to serve with a joyful and generous spirit
The Lord Jesus wants to fill each one of us with the power and strength of the
Holy Spirit so we can bear great fruit for God's kingdom (the fruit of peace,
joy, righteousness, and love) and also bring the fruit of his kingdom to our
neighbor as well. We labor for the Lord to bring him praise, honor, and glory.
And we labor for our neighbor for their welfare with the same spirit of
loving-kindness and compassion which the Lord has shown to us.
Paul the Apostle reminds us, "Whatever your task, work heartily, as
serving the Lord and not others, knowing that from the Lord you will receive
the inheritance as your reward - you are serving the Lord Christ"
(Colossians 3:23-24). Do you perform your daily tasks and responsibilities with
cheerfulness and diligence for the Lord's sake? And do you give generously to
others, especially to those in need of your care and support?
Lord
Jesus,fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may serve you joyfully and serve my
neighbor willingly with a generous heart, not looking for how much I can get,
but rather looking for how much I can give.
Daily
Quote from the Early Church Fathers: Christ our householder, author
unknown, from the 5th century A.D.
"The
householder [in Matthew's parable - chapter 20] is Christ, to whom the heavens
and the earth are like a single house; the family is as it were the multitude
of creatures both angelic and earthly. It is as if he built a three-storied
house: hell, heaven and earth, so that those struggling may live upon the
earth, those conquered below the earth, those conquering in heaven. We too, set
in the middle, should strive not to descend to those who are in hell but ascend
to those who are in heaven. And in case perhaps you do not know which one you
ought to shun or which one you ought to aspire to, he has given you as it were
a little taste of both while you live between light and darkness: night as a
taste of hell, daylight as a taste of heaven." (excerpt from an
incomplete Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, HOMILY 34)
https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2020&date=sep20
TWENTY-FIFTH DAY IN ORDINARY TIME
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, MATTHEW 20:1-16a
(Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 145; Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a)
KEY VERSE: "Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last" (v. 16).
TO KNOW: The grape harvest in Israel ripened toward the end of September, and was soon followed by the rains. If the harvest was not gathered before the rain came, it was ruined. Any worker was welcome, even if he could give only an hour. The men who stood in the market-place were waiting for work. These men were hired laborers and were at the mercy of chance employment. The pay was a denarius or a drachma, the normal day's wage for a working man. Jesus told his disciples a parable about divine justice in which God was compared to a landowner who called forth workers for his vineyard. The first to respond were promised the expected day's wages. Those who came later were promised "what is just" (v. 4). When it was time to pay the workers, the owner began with the last and paid them a full day's wages. When those who worked all day were paid the same amount, they complained that they had been treated unfairly. The vineyard owner told them that he had done them no injustice. Jesus' parable put forth two great truths. First, the right of every person to work and to earn a living wage. And second, what God gives is not pay, but a gift; it is not a reward, but grace offered from the goodness of God's heart.
TO LOVE: In what ways do I work for justice in the marketplace?
TO SERVE: Lord Jesus, thank you for your generosity to all your children.
http://www.togetherwithgodsword.com/commentaries-on-the-daily-gospel-of-the-mass.html
Sunday 20 September 2020
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 55:6-9. The Lord is near to all who call him – Psalm
144(145):2-3, 8-9, 17-18. Philippians 1:20-24, 27. Matthew 20:1-16.
Why be envious because I am generous?
Many may find the parable of the vineyard disconcerting. It
describes a joyless world of work, where people are hired for the whole day as
well as only one hour and paid equally. There is not much joy in their work,
which in turn causes anger and tension.
Why did Jesus tell this story? What point was he trying to make?
This parable bears a striking similarity to the parable of the Prodigal Son.
They both tell of the unexpected generosity of the father to his wayward son,
and the equal generosity of the landowner to those who worked only one hour.
For us to be called to work in the Father’s Vineyard is a privilege.
Jesus reassures us that no matter how ‘late’ we arrive, there is
work for us all to do and, in turn, be justly rewarded.
http://www.pray.com.au/gospel_reflection/sunday-20-september-2020/
Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions
Saint of the Day for September 20
(August 21, 1821 – September 16, 1846; Companions d.
between 1839 – 1867)
Saint Andrew Kim Taegon and Companions | CNS Photo
Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and
Companions’ Story
The first native Korean priest, Andrew Kim Taegon was the son of
Christian converts. Following his baptism at the age of 15, Andrew traveled
1,300 miles to the seminary in Macao, China. After six years, he managed to
return to his country through Manchuria. That same year he crossed the Yellow
Sea to Shanghai and was ordained a priest. Back home again, he was assigned to
arrange for more missionaries to enter by a water route that would elude the
border patrol. He was arrested, tortured, and finally beheaded at the Han River
near Seoul, the capital.
Andrew’s father Ignatius Kim, was martyred during the
persecution of 1839, and was beatified in 1925. Paul Chong Hasang, a lay
apostle and married man, also died in 1839 at age 45.
Among the other martyrs in 1839 was Columba Kim, an unmarried
woman of 26. She was put in prison, pierced with hot tools and seared with
burning coals. She and her sister Agnes were disrobed and kept for two days in
a cell with condemned criminals, but were not molested. After Columba complained
about the indignity, no more women were subjected to it. The two were beheaded.
Peter Ryou, a boy of 13, had his flesh so badly torn that he could pull
off pieces and throw them at the judges. He was killed by strangulation.
Protase Chong, a 41-year-old nobleman, apostatized under torture and was freed.
Later he came back, confessed his faith and was tortured to death.
Christianity came to Korea during the Japanese invasion in 1592
when some Koreans were baptized, probably by Christian Japanese soldiers.
Evangelization was difficult because Korea refused all contact with the outside
world except for taking taxes to Beijing annually. On one of these occasions,
around 1777, Christian literature obtained from Jesuits in China led educated
Korean Christians to study. A home Church began. When a Chinese priest managed
to enter secretly a dozen years later, he found 4,000 Catholics, none of whom
had ever seen a priest. Seven years later there were 10,000 Catholics.
Religious freedom came to Korea in 1883.
Besides Andrew and Paul, Pope John Paul II canonized 98 Koreans
and three French missionaries who had been martyred between 1839 and 1867, when
he visited Korea in 1984. Among them were bishops and priests, but for the most
part they were lay persons: 47 women and 45 men.
Reflection
We marvel at the fact that the Korean Church was strictly a lay
Church for a dozen years after its birth. How did the people survive without
the Eucharist? It is no belittling of this and other sacraments to realize that
there must be a living faith before there can be a truly beneficial celebration
of the Eucharist. The sacraments are signs of God’s initiative and response to
faith already present. The sacraments increase grace and faith, but only if
there is something ready to be increased.
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saints-andrew-kim-taegon-paul-chong-hasang-and-companions/
Lectio Divina: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Lectio Divina
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Parable of the laborers sent to the vineyard
The absolute gratuitousness of the love of God
Matthew 20: 1-16
1. Opening prayer
Oh Father, Your Son Jesus, whom You have given to us, is our
kingdom, our richness, our Heaven; He is the Master of the house and of the
earth in which we live and He goes out continuously to search for us, because
He desires to call us, to pronounce our name, to offer us His infinite love. We
will never be able to pay Him back, never repay the superabundance of His
compassion and mercy for us; we can only tell Him our Yes, ours: “Here I am, I
come”, or repeat with Isaiah: “Here I am Lord, send me!”. Lord, allow this word
to enter into my heart, in my eyes, into my ears and that it changes me,
transforms me, according to this surprising incomprehensible love that Jesus is
offering me today also, even at this moment. Lead me to the last place, to mine,
that which He has prepared for me, there where I can truly and fully be myself.
Amen.
2. Reading
a) To insert the passage in its context:
This passage places us within the section of the Gospel of
Matthew, which directly precedes the account of the Passion, death and
Resurrection of Jesus. This section begins in 19:1, where it is said that Jesus
definitively leaves the territory of Galilee to go to Judea, beginning in this
way the path to get close to Jerusalem and this is concluded in 25:46, with the
account on the coming and the judgment of the Son of God. In particular,
chapter 20 places us also along the road of Jesus towards the holy city and its
temple, in a context of teaching and of polemics with the wise and the powerful
of the time, which He carries out through parables and encounters.
b) To help in the reading of the passage:
20, 1a: with the first words of the parable,
which are a formula of introduction, Jesus wants to accompany us into the most
profound theme about which He intends to speak. He wants to open before
us the doors of the kingdom, which is He himself, and He presents Himself as
the Master of the vineyard, which needs to be cultivated.
20: 1b-7: These verses constitute the first part of the parable; in
it Jesus tells about the initiative of the Master of the vineyard to employ the
laborers, describing the four times he went out to look for laborers, in which
he establishes a contract and the last time he goes out is at the end of the
day.
29, 8-15: This second part includes, instead, the description of
the payment to the workers, with the protest of the first one and the Master’s
answer.
20, 16: At the end is given the conclusive sentence, which is
included with 19: 30 and which reveals the key of the passage and the its
application: those who in the community are considered the last ones, in the
perspective of the Kingdom and of God’s judgment, will be the first ones.
c) Text:
20, 1°: 1 'Now the kingdom of Heaven is like a
landowner …..
20, 1b-7: .... going out at daybreak to hire workers for his
vineyard. 2 He made an agreement with the workers for one denarius a day and
sent them to his vineyard. 3 Going out at about the third hour he saw others
standing idle in the market place 4 and said to them, "You go to my
vineyard too and I will give you a fair wage." 5 So they went. At about
the sixth hour and again at about the ninth hour, he went out and did the same.
6 Then at about the eleventh hour he went out and found more men standing
around, and he said to them, "Why have you been standing here idle all
day?" 7 "Because no one has hired us," they answered. He said to
them, "You go into my vineyard too."
20, 8-15: 8 In the evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his
bailiff, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the
last arrivals and ending with the first." 9 So those who were hired at
about the eleventh hour came forward and received one denarius each. 10 When
the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius
each. 11 They took it, but grumbled at the landowner saying, 12 "The men
who came last have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as
us, though we have done a heavy day's work in all the heat." 13 He
answered one of them and said, "My friend, I am not being unjust to you;
did we not agree on one denarius? 14 Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay
the latecomer as much as I pay you. 15 Have I no right to do what I like with
my own? Why should you be envious because I am generous?"
20: 16: 16 Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.'
3. A moment of prayerful silence
so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.
4. Some questions
to help us in our personal reflection
a) The passage opens with a connecting particle,
“in fact”, which is very important, because it sends us to the
preceding verse (Mt 19:30), where Jesus affirms that “the first will be the
last and the last the first”, with the same words that He will repeat at the
end of this parable. Therefore, these are words of utmost importance,
fundamental, which indicate to me the direction which I should take. Jesus is
the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven; He is the new world, into which I am
invited to enter. But His is an overturned world, where our logic of power, gain,
reward, ability, effort, is defeated and replaced by another logic, that of
absolute gratuitousness, of merciful and superabundant love. If I think that I
am first, that I am strong and capable; if I have already placed myself in the
first place at the table of the Lord, it is better that now I rise and go and
take the last place. There the Lord will come to look for me and, calling me,
He will raise me and take me towards Him.
b). Here, Jesus compares Himself to a landowner,
the Master of the house, using a particular figure, which He repeats
several times in the Gospel. I try to follow it, being attentive to the
characteristics which it presents and trying to verify which is my relationship
with Him. The Master of the house is the owner of the vineyard, who takes care
of it, surrounding it by a wall, digging a press there, cultivating it with
love and labor (Mt 21: 33 ff.), so that it can bear a better fruit. It is the
Master of the house who offers a great supper, and invites many, calling to his
table the most forlorn or forsaken, the cripple and the lame, the blind (Lk 14:
21ff). And the one who returns from the wedding and for whom we have to wait
keeping watch, because we do not know the hour (Lk 12:36); is the Master of the
house who left on a trip, who has ordered us to keep watch, so as to be ready
to open the door for him, as soon as he returns and knocks, in the evening, or
at midnight, or at the rooster’s crow, or in the morning (Mk 13:35). I
understand then, that the Lord expects the good fruit from me; that He has
chosen me as a guest to His table; that He will return and look for me and will
knock at my door... Am I ready to respond to Him, to open the door for Him? To
offer to Him the fruit of the love which He expects from me? Or rather, am I
sleeping, weighed down by a thousand other interests, enslaved by other masters
of the house, diverse and far away from Him?
c) The Lord Jesus, the Master of the house and of
the vineyard, repeatedly goes out to call and to send; at dawn, at nine o’clock,
at noon, at three o’clock in the afternoon, at five, when the day is almost
ended. He does not get tired. He comes to look for me, to offer me His
love, His presence, to seal a pact with me. He desires to offer me His
vineyard, its beauty. When we do meet, when He, looking at me fixedly, will
love me (Mk 10:21), What will I answer? Will I be sad because I have many other
goods belonging to me (Lk 18:23)? Will I ask Him to consider me justified,
because I have already taken on other commitments? (Lk 14:18?). Will I flee,
naked, losing also that small cloth of happiness that has remained in order to
cover myself (Mk 14:52)? Or, rather, will I say, “Yes, yes”, and then I will
not go (Mt 21: 29)? I feel that this word causes me to be in crisis, it peers
into the depth of myself, it reveals to me who I am ... I remain dismayed,
fearful for my freedom, but I decide, before the Lord who is speaking to me, to
do as Mary did and also say, “Lord, may it be done to me according to Your
word”, with humble availability and abandonment.
d) Now the Gospel places me before my
relationship with others, the brothers and sisters who share with me the
journey of following Jesus. We are all convoked to Him, in the evening, after
the work of the day: He opens His treasure of love and begins to distribute it,
to give grace, mercy, compassion, friendship, himself totally. He does not
stop. The Lord continues only to overflow, to pour out, to give Himself to us,
to each one. Matthew points out, at this point, that someone murmurs against
the Master of the vineyard, against the Lord. Indignation springs up because He
treats everyone equally, with the same intensity of love, with the same
superabundance. Perhaps what is written in these lines also applies to me: the
Gospel knows how to bring out and make evident my heart as it is, the most
hidden part of myself. Perhaps the Lord is, precisely, addressing these words
filled with sadness: “Perhaps you are jealous?” I should allow
myself to be questioned. I have to allow Him to enter within me and to look at
me with His penetrating eyes, because only if He looks at me, I will be able to
be healed. Now I pray as follows: “Lord, I ask You, come to me, put Your word
in my heart and let new life germinate, let love germinate”.
5. A key for the reading
The Vineyard
In the image of the vineyard, apparently very simple and
ordinary, Scripture condenses a very rich and profound reality, always more
dense in significance, gradually as the texts get closer to the full revelation
of Jesus. In the first book of Kings, chapter 21, we read of the violent attack
against Naboth, a simple subject of the corrupt King Ahab, who possessed a
vineyard, planted, unfortunately, precisely next the to palace of the King.
This account makes us understand how important the vineyard was, an inviolable
property: Naboth would not have given it up for anything in the world, as he
says, “Yahweh forbid that I should give you my ancestral heritage!” (I Kings
21:3). Out of love for it, he lost his life. Therefore, the vineyard represents
the most precious good, the family heritage, in a certain part, the identity
itself of the person; he cannot sell it, cede it to others, barter or trade it
for other goods, which would never equal it. It hides a vital, spiritual force.
Isaiah 5 tells us clearly that the vineyard signifies the
people of Israel, as it is written: “Now, the vineyard of Yahweh Sabaoth is the
House of Israel; and the people of Judah the plant He cherished” (Isa 5: 7).
The Lord has loved these people with an infinite and eternal love, sealed by an
inviolable covenant; He takes care of it, just as a vine-dresser would do with
his vineyard, doing everything possible so that it can bear more beautiful
fruit. Each one of us is Israel, the whole Church: the Father has found us as
dry, arid land, devastated, filled with rocks, and He has cultivated it, He has
dug around it, fertilized it, watered it always; He has planted us as a chosen
vineyard, all with genuine vines (Jer 2:21). What more could He have done for
us, which He has not done? (Isa 5:4). In His infinite lowering, the Lord has
become vineyard Himself; He has become the true Vine (Jn 15:1ff), of which we
are the branches; He united Himself to us, just as the vine is united to its
branches. The Father, who is the vine-dresser, continues His work of love in
us, so that we may bear fruit and He waits patiently. He prunes, He cultivates,
but then He sends us to work, to collect the fruits to offer to Him. We are
sent to His people, to His sons, as sons that we are ourselves, as His
disciples; we cannot draw back, refuse, because we have been created for this:
that we may go and bear fruit and that our fruit may remain (Jn 15:16). Lord,
turn to us; look down from Heaven and visit Your vineyard (Psalm 79:15).
The promise: one denarius
The Master of the vineyard establishes as the payment for the
work of the day a denarius; a good sum, which allowed one to live with dignity.
More or less it corresponds to the drachma agreed upon by the old Tobit with
the one who accompanied his son Tobias towards the Media (Tob 5:15).
But in the evangelical account this denarius is immediately
called by another name. The Master, in fact, says, “that which is just I will
give you” (v4). Our inheritance, our salary is what is just, what is good: the
Lord Jesus. He, in fact, does not give, does not promise other than Himself.
Our reward is in Heaven (Mt 5:12), with our Father (Mt 6:1). It is not the
money, the denarius which was used to pay the tax per-capita to the Romans, on
which was the image and the inscription of King Tiberius Caesar (Mt 22: 20),
but which is the face of Jesus, His name, His presence. He tells us, “I am with
you not only today, but all days, until the end of the world. I myself will be
your reward”.
The sending out
The text offers to our life a very strong energy, which springs
from the verbs “to send, to order” to go”, repeated twice. Both
concern us; they touch us deeply; they call us and put us in movement. It is
the Lord Jesus who sends us, making of us His disciples: “Behold, I send you”
(Mt 10:16). He calls us every day for his mission and repeats to us, “Go!” and
our happiness is hidden precisely here, in the realization of this Word of His.
Also where He sends us, in the way in which He indicates it, towards the reality
and the persons whom He places before us.
The murmuring, the grumbling
These are words of utmost importance, true and very much present
in our experience of daily life. We cannot deny this: they dwell in our heart,
in our thoughts, sometimes they torment us, disfigure us, get us terribly
tired, drive us away from ourselves, from others, from the Lord. Yes, we are
also among those workers who complain and grumble, murmuring against the
Master. The rumor of the murmuring comes from very far away, but it joins us
and enters our heart. Israel in the desert murmured heavily against its Lord
and we have received as inheritance those thoughts, those words: “The Lord
hates us, that is why he brought us out of the land of Egypt to hand us over to
the Amorites and to destroy us” (Deut 1:27) and we doubt His capacity to
nourish us, to lead us ahead, to protect us: “Can God make a banquet in the
desert?” (Ps 78:19). To murmur means not to listen to the voice of the Lord,
not to believe anymore in His love for us: Therefore, we become scandalized,
upset, strongly against the merciful Lord and we get angry against His way of
acting and we wish to change it, to make it smaller according to our own
schema: He went to the house of a sinner! He eats and drinks with tax collectors,
with sinners!” (Lk 5:30; 15:2; 19:7). If we listen well this is the secret
murmuring of our heart. How to heal it? Saint Peter suggests this way:
“Practice hospitality with one another, without murmuring” (I Pet 4: 9); only
hospitality, that is, acceptance can, little by little, change our heart and
open it to be receptive, capable of bearing within it persons, situations, the
reality which we find in life. “Accept one another” says Scripture. And it is
precisely like that: we have to learn to accept, above all, the Lord Jesus, as
He is, with His way of loving and of remaining, of speaking with us and of
changing us, of waiting for us and of attracting us. To accept Him is to accept
the one who is at our side, who comes to meet us; it is only this movement
which can overcome the harshness of murmuring.
Murmuring is born from jealousy, from envy, from our evil eye,
as the Master of the vineyard says, Jesus Himself. He knows how to keep us
inside. He knows how to penetrate our look and reach our heart, in the spirit.
He knows how we are, He knows us, loves us; And it is out of love that He
brings out of us the evil within, takes off the veil from our evil eye. He
helps us to become aware or conscious of how we are, of what is within us. At
the moment when He says, “Perhaps your eye is evil?” as He is doing today in
this Gospel, He heals us, He takes the balm and spreads it, takes the clay made
with his saliva and puts it on our eyes, to the very depth.
6. A moment of prayer: Psalm 135
Refrain: Your love for us is infinite!
Alleluia! Give thanks to Yahweh for He is good,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
Give thanks to the God of gods,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He alone works wonders,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He struck down the first-born of Egypt,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He brought Israel out from among them,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
With mighty hand and outstretched arm,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He split the Sea of Reeds in two,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
Let Israel pass through the middle,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
And drowned Pharaoh and all his army,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He led His people through the desert,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He kept us in mind when we were humbled,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
And rescued us from our enemies,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
He provides food for all living creatures,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
Give thanks to the God of heaven,
for His faithful love endures for ever.
7. Final Prayer
Thank you, O Father, for having revealed Your Son to me and for
having made me enter into His inheritance, in His vineyard. You have rendered
me a branch, have rendered me a grape: now I only need to remain in Him, in You
and allow myself to be taken as good fruit, ripe, to be placed in the press.
Yes, Lord, I know it: this is the way, I am not afraid, because You are with
me. I know that the only way to happiness is the gift of self to You, the gift
to the brothers. That I may be a branch, that I may be good grapes, to be
squeezed, as You wish! Amen.
https://ocarm.org/en/content/lectio/lectio-25th-sunday-ordinary-time-0
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