Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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.
Psalms 145(144):2-3.8-9.17-18.
Every day I will bless you; I will praise your name forever.
Great is the LORD and worthy of high praise; God's grandeur is beyond understanding.
The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love.
The LORD is good to all, compassionate to every creature.
You, LORD, are just in all your ways, faithful in all your works.
You, LORD, are near to all who call upon you, to all who call upon you in truth.
Letter to the Philippians 1:20c-24.27a.
My eager expectation and hope is that I shall not be put to shame in any way, but that with all boldness, now as always, 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, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear news of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind struggling together for the faith of the gospel,
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 20:1-16a.
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, he 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, he 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."
Commentary of the day
Saint Gregory the Great (c.540-604), Pope, Doctor of the Church
Homilies on the Gospel, no. 11 (©Cistercian Fathers series)
"You too go into my vineyard"
At no time did the Lord cease sending his people workmen to cultivate
his vineyard..:. through the patriarchs, and later through the teachers
of the law, and then through the prophets, and at last through the
apostles, he labored at the cultivation of his vineyard as if by his
workmen. Everyone, though, who had the right faith with good works...
was a workman in his vineyard.
And so the Hebrew people is meant
by the workmen who came to the vineyard in the morning and during the
third, sixth and ninth hours. In the persons of their elect, they
eagerly worshipped God with right faith from the very beginning The
Gentiles were called at the eleventh hour, and it was said to them: «Why
do you stand here the whole day idle?» Those who neglected to labor for
the whole of their lives, while so much of the world's history passed
by, were like those standing by the whole day. But consider, my friends,
what they answered when they were questioned. They said: «Because no
one has hired us.» In truth no patriarch and no prophet had come to
them. And did they mean when they said, «No one has hired us to labor,»
if not «No one has preached to us the ways of life»?
What, then,
are we to say, to excuse ourselves for our having ceased from good
works? We have come to the faith almost from our mothers' wombs, we have
heard the words of life from our cradles, we have received divine
preaching from the breasts of holy Church together with our mothers'
milk!
Commentary of the day
Saint Gregory the Great (c.540-604), Pope, Doctor of the Church
Homilies on the Gospel, no. 11 (©Cistercian Fathers series)
"You too go into my vineyard"
At no time did the Lord cease sending his people workmen to cultivate
his vineyard..:. through the patriarchs, and later through the teachers
of the law, and then through the prophets, and at last through the
apostles, he labored at the cultivation of his vineyard as if by his
workmen. Everyone, though, who had the right faith with good works...
was a workman in his vineyard.
And so the Hebrew people is meant
by the workmen who came to the vineyard in the morning and during the
third, sixth and ninth hours. In the persons of their elect, they
eagerly worshipped God with right faith from the very beginning The
Gentiles were called at the eleventh hour, and it was said to them: «Why
do you stand here the whole day idle?» Those who neglected to labor for
the whole of their lives, while so much of the world's history passed
by, were like those standing by the whole day. But consider, my friends,
what they answered when they were questioned. They said: «Because no
one has hired us.» In truth no patriarch and no prophet had come to
them. And did they mean when they said, «No one has hired us to labor,»
if not «No one has preached to us the ways of life»?
What, then,
are we to say, to excuse ourselves for our having ceased from good
works? We have come to the faith almost from our mothers' wombs, we have
heard the words of life from our cradles, we have received divine
preaching from the breasts of holy Church together with our mothers'
milk!
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