Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time_Year A_And Miles to Go Before We Sleep_100123

Deacon Tom Writes,

“And Miles to Go Before We Sleep”

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

In his Apostolic Exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium, the Joy of the Gospel” Pope Francis wrote “The Church which “goes forth” is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice. An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, He has loved us first (1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast!” The Pope’s reflection here captures well the image Matthew uses in today’s gospel of the Father sending his sons into the field to do the work that He wishes to be done. In this gospel passage and Francis’ comment, we have a vivid picture of our task as missionary disciples: we have been asked to proclaim, witness and serve God’s reign of love, salvation and justice throughout our life’s journey and to those we encounter along the way.

In our readings today, a father instructs each of his two sons to “go work in the vineyard today.” We observe normal human behavior at work in this reading, reminiscent, perhaps, of days when we told our children to do something and they behaved similarly, one saying, “Yes” but doesn’t follow through; the other saying “No” but does. Both have been given a chore; only one obeys! Today’s gospel message is God’s request of us, His children, to bring His message of love, compassion, forgiveness and mercy to others, to a friend or neighbor who has given up on church, perhaps, or has been going through a difficult time and feels no one cares. There are many who need to know God loves them. There are so many who feel that God has abandoned them or is punishing them and they have isolated themselves from a parish community. Pope Francis is reminding us that we have all been called to share His love, mercy and healing with others. This is the Joy of the Gospel, the Good News, to be shared with the lonely, those who are afraid and those who have fallen away from their faith. We are all active players in the work of spreading the Joy of the Gospel. There are no passive players, no benchwarmers. Spreading the gospel, being missionaries, and evangelizing – being joyful transmitters of the faith that we believe - is a requirement imposed upon us by our Baptism.

Many Catholics resist this notion of being “missionaries”, of “evangelizing” or being “sent” to engage in “missionary activity.” That is primarily because so many of us have a limited understanding of the word “mission”. We associate it with going to the far reaches of the earth to preach the faith. True, many have done this – vis-a-vie the Maryknoll Fathers, the missionary arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, over the past century. But, over the years, we have come to a better understanding about the nature of mission work to include any work that we do to “gossip the gospel” that is, to tell others how the gospel is alive and working in our life, is missionary work. Any effort we do to help a neighbor because of our willingness to be a “servant” as demonstrated by Christ, is missionary work. Any sacrifice we make for others because of our love of God is a sacrifice that makes us a “missionary”.

What we know about mission from the profound writings of recent popes is that the Church doesn’t have a mission; rather, the mission has a Church… So, when Jesus tells his disciples, “Go, make disciples of all nations”, that’s what we are to do… How are we to do that? As a community of missionary disciples sent out by our Church to whom that mission has been entrusted.

Enjoy the day and may God bless the work of your hands….
Deacon Tom

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com and listen in as the three deacs engage in a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those thinking of coming into or leaving it.

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus's Greatest Miracle  According to Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM Fr. Martin dives deep into the Gospel story to reveal how Jesus's greatest miracle can help each of us experience the new life that God promises. Come Forth is a spiritual masterpiece."

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  The Heart of Centering Prayer: Part 4 of 4 by Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault

 

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time_C - The Cost of Discipleship_092522

Tom Writes,

The Prophetic Tradition

 

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C 

The Prophet Amos who speaks to us in our first reading today was a shepherd of Tekoa in Judah during the prosperous reign of King Jeroboam II from 786-746 B.C. For several weeks now we have heard him speak of the injustices against the poor and the complacency of the people of his day. Like all prophets, his messages were very unpopular. Amos told the people that there would be a day of reckoning on account of how they treated the poor. He foretold a time when God would destroy Jerusalem and send his people into exile. The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in 597 B.C., an event history records as the Babylonian Captivity.

Amos belonged to a very special group of Old Testament authors known as the Minor Prophets. Included in this genre of very irritating people are Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Prophets were irritating because they delivered unpopular messages. The messages they delivered were not their own, but God’s. Prophets encouraged the people to return to God and be faithful to him. Not surprisingly, these individuals also foretold the dismal consequences that awaited the people of Israel for their prideful disobedience and unfaithfulness to God. Inherent in the prophetic message, however, was always a call to turn away from sin and return to the love of God.

It has been thousands of years since the Old Testament Prophets spoke out against the evils of their times. Yet, the passage of time has not silenced the need for us today to hear and take seriously the prophetic messages being spoken to us. Fortunately, there are those among us today who continue to speak prophetically about the poor and suffering among us. They remind us that the poor are still being treated unjustly through limited access to quality education and health care; they point out that racism and discrimination still prevail in many facets of our society; they shed light where immigrants are being exploited. Prophetic voices today remind us that we, like the people of Amos’s day, or like Lazarus in today’s gospel, do not see the injustice and suffering of those around us. It seems that the real sin we all face today in our comfort and our abundance is that the poor and the needy have become invisible to us or worse yet, we have become indifferent to the “cries of the poor”. We have pushed the suffering souls to the fringes of our society so that our paths will seldom cross or our eyes will never meet.

Let us give thanks for the likes of St. Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Merton, Sr. Helen Prejean, Desmond Tutu, Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier, St. John Paul II, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dorothy Day to name but a few faithful and courageous souls whose lives and witness have helped keep the embers of the prophetic tradition smoldering in our times. They have helped enlivened the spirits of so many others to continue to do the irritating work of the prophets who have gone before us.

May we listen to their words, imitate them and respond faithfully to the "cry of the poor".

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Tune into the  www.deaconspod.com Podcast to hear a contemporary Catholic conversation exploring the treasures our faith has to offer.

 

Recommended Reading: “Beginning to pray” by Archbishop Anthony Bloom - a delightful read about mindful prayer.

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Prophetic Tradition_092919

Deacon Tom Writes,

The Prophetic Tradition

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Prophet Amos who speaks to us in our first reading today was a shepherd of Tekoa in Judah during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II from 786-746 B.C. For several weeks now we have heard him speak of the injustices against the poor and the complacency of the people of his day. Like all prophets, his messages were very unpopular. Amos told the people that there would be a day of reckoning for how they treated the poor. He foretold a time when God would destroy Jerusalem and send his people into exile. The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in 597 B.C., an event history records as the Babylonian Captivity.

Amos belonged to a very special group of Old Testament authors known as the Minor Prophets. Included in this genre of very irritating people are Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Prophets were irritating because they delivered unpopular messages. The messages they delivered were not their own, but God’s. Prophets encouraged the people to return to God and be faithful to him. Not surprisingly, these individuals also foretold the dismal consequences that awaited the people of Israel for their prideful disobedience and unfaithfulness to God. Inherent in the prophetic message, however, was always a call to turn away from sin and return to the love of God.

It has been thousands of years since the Old Testament Prophets spoke out against the evils of their times. Yet, the passage of time has not silenced the need for the people today to hear and take seriously the prophetic messages being spoken to us. Fortunately, there are those among us today who continue to speak prophetically about the poor and suffering among us. They remind us that the poor are still being treated unjustly through limited access to quality education and health care; they point out that racism and discrimination still prevail in many facets of our society; they shed light where immigrants are being exploited. Prophetic voices today remind us that we, like the people of Amos’s day, or like Lazarus in today’s gospel, do not see the injustice and suffering of those around us. It seems that the real sin we all face today in our comfort and our abundance is that the poor and the needy have become invisible to us or worse yet, we have become indifferent to the “cries of the poor”. We have pushed the suffering souls to the fringes of our society so that our paths will seldom cross or our eyes will never meet.

Let us give thanks for the likes of St. Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Merton, Sr. Helen Prejean, Desmond Tutu, Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier, St. John Paul II, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dorothy Day to name but a few faithful and courageous souls whose lives and witness have helped keep the embers of the prophetic tradition smoldering in our times. They have helped enlivened the spirits of so many others to continue to do the irritating work of the prophets who have gone before us.

May we listen to their words and respond faithfully to the "cry of the poor".

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Envious Hearts

Deacon Tom writes

“Envious Hearts”

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Both Moses and St. Luke give us some insight about a serious sin that we all experience from time to time. It is the sin of envy. We hear today how Moses responds to a complaint brought to him by two of his tribesmen.  What bothered them was that several others of their group were prophesying even though they had not been there when they received the “spirit. Moses sensed a spirit of envy or jealousy was at work with those who lodged the complaint. Instead of chastising the two who complained he, in turn, complained to them saying, “Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!"

In a similar way, the Apostles see that someone not in their group is casting out demons and report that to Jesus.  Jesus wisely cautions his disciples “Do not prevent him.” Jesus knows that any good work done in His name will produce good fruit.

Very often our fragile human nature shows itself in the ugliest of ways. In these two incidents from Sacred Scripture we notice how one group of individuals is offended because others appear to have gotten something that they did not deserve:  in the first reading the Spirit came to rest on the men who left camp; in the gospel a stranger was casting out demons without being an Apostle. Envy is at work in both these events. Each time one group feels that they have been cheated, perhaps, like someone else was getting something they should not have.

Our sequential, linear minds constantly seek to put God in a box. We want to control God. We want Him to be predictable and to be fair; fair, that is, as we perceive fair to be. But God is above all our thinking and even above our wildest imagination. God’s ways are simply beyond us and we need to grow into that realization.

God is at work all around us, in all faiths, in all peoples, in all circumstances. God’s Spirit works in the hearts of the faithful everywhere. God is the reality through which we live, and move, and have our being. It is not jealousy that should fill our hearts, but rather a deep sense of awe at the wonders God is unfolding minute-by-minute, day-by-day all around us. Even in those who look, act, believe, and worship differently than we do.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Image from: zazzle.com