9TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 2 / (Green)
Psalter: Week 4 / (Red)
St. Boniface, bishop & martyr
1st Reading: Tb 1:3; 2:1a-8
I, Tobit, have walked in the ways of truth and justice all the days of my life; I have given many alms to my brethren and to those of my countrymen who were deported with me to Nineveh, a city in the country of the Assyrians.
When I returned to my house, my wife Anna and my son Tobias were given back to me. At the feast of Pentecost, the sacred feast of the Seven Weeks, they prepared a good meal for me and I sat down to eat. I saw the many dishes and said to my son: “Go and bring as many as you can find of our relatives who are in need and who remember the Lord. I will wait here for them.” When Tobias returned, he said: “Father, one of ours has been strangled and thrown into the public square.” Before I ate anything I hurried out and carried this man into the house and waited till sunset to bury him. When I returned home I washed myself and ate my food in sorrow. I remembered the prophecy which Amos uttered against Bethel: “Your feasts will be turned into mourning. All your songs will be turned into lamentations,” and I wept.
After sunset I went out and, after I had dug a trench, I buried the man. My neighbors mocked me, saying: “He no longer fears to be put to death for doing that; he had to flee but look he is again burying the dead.”
Gospel: Mk 12:1-12
Using parables, Jesus went on to say, “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press and built a watch tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenants and went abroad.
In due time, he sent a servant to receive from the tenants the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized the servant, struck him and sent him back empty-handed. Again, the man sent another servant. They also struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent another, and they killed him. In the same way they treated many others: some they beat up and others they killed. One was still left, his beloved son. And so, last of all, he sent him to the tenants, for he said, ‘They will respect my son.’
But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let’s kill him and the property will be ours.’ So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
And Jesus added, “Have you not read this text of the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected has become the keystone; this is the Lord’s doing, and we marvel at it?”
They wanted to arrest him, for they realized that Jesus meant this parable for them, but they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.
REFLECTION:
We have a wonderful God. He exerted all efforts to create a world where we can truly maximize our potentials. If the world is a vineyard, it has everything to keep it functioning at its best. And this is for our advantage. But how did we respond to God’s generosity? We took advantage of this world. We are ingrates who even plotted to take away from God the ownership of this world. And so we suffer so much now because of this. We are in an unprecedented time when we have the capacity to destroy the whole of creation. If we will not modify our greed, the very thing that we crave for will be taken away from us.
Daily Reflection
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Biblical Texts are taken from Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition (57th Edition) The New English Translation for the ROMAN MISSAL
With permission from the EPISCOPAL COMMISION ON LITURGY of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
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