Daily Reflection | Gospel Reading | RVA

Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled together. One of them, a lawyer, questioned him to test him, “Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?”
Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and the most important of the commandments. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets are founded on these two commandments.”

Reflections
“The two commandments.”
What is remarkable about Jesus’ response is that he estab­lished the connection between the two commandments. While the love of neighbor flows (1) from the love of God flooding our heart and (2) from our res­ponse to that love, the love of God necessarily leads to a love of our neighbor. There is a cyclic dynamism between the two. They cannot be separated; one does not stand alone. By pla­cing them alongside each other, Jesus assigned them “equal weight”(Brendan Byrne).
During an interview after the release of Pope Francis’ encycli­cal Laudato Si’, Cardinal Peter Turkson, the prefect of the Dis­castery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, said: “You cannot believe and love God without respecting or caring for what he has created.” In other words, the love of neighbor and the care of God’s beautiful creation are an integral part of loving God. A love of God becomes real and finds meaning only when it is directed to the care of the human person and other forms of life.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14
Jesus continued speaking to them in parables: “This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven: A king gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to call the invited guests to the banquet, but the guests refused to come.
Again, he sent other servants, instructing them to say to the invited guests, ‘I have prepared a banquet, slaughtered my fattened calves and other animals, and now, everything is ready. Come to the wedding!’ But they paid no attention and went away, some to their farms, and some to their work. Others seized the servants of the king, insulted them and killed them.
The king was furious. He sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is prepared, but the invited guests were not worthy. Go instead to the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding feast.’
The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, good and bad alike, so that the hall was filled with guests.
The king came in to see the wedding guests, and he noticed a man not wearing a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in without the wedding clothes?’ But the man remained silent. So the king said to his servants, ‘Bind
his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Reflections
“Without the wedding clothes.”
The heavenly banquet is open to everyone. However, this comes with a price; one needs a ticket to get in. And the ticket comes in the form of repentance and good works. Although many have heard Jesus’ message of love but only few received it well, underwent the much ­needed conversion, and did good works that come with it. Conversion and a life of good works are the ticket, the two sides of a coin, so to speak, needed to be part of the reign of God. They are the wedding garments we need to wear to qualify.
The Canadian Jesuit theo­logian Bernard Lonergan des­cribed conversion as an “about face”, a turning away from things that are not helping, things that lead us away from the good, the real, and the genuinely valuable. To him, conversion involves: (1) actions/decisions based on genuine values and not on mere satisfaction(s); (2) loving God in return for his pure, unconditio­nal love that floods our heart.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16
This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven: A landowner went out early in the morning, to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay each worker the usual daily wage, and sent them to his vineyard.
He went out again, at about nine in the morning, and, seeing others idle in the town square, he said to them, ‘You also, go to my vineyard, and I will pay you what is just.’ So they went.
The owner went out at midday, and, again, at three in the afternoon, and he made the same offer. Again he went out, at the last working hour—the eleventh—and he saw others standing around. So he said to them, ‘Why do you stand idle the whole day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ The master said, ‘Go, and work in my vineyard.’
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ Those who had gone to work at the eleventh hour came up, and were each given a silver coin. When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received one silver coin. On receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner.
They said, ‘These last, hardly worked an hour; yet, you have treated them the same as us, who have endured the heavy work of the day and the heat.’ The owner said to one of them, ‘Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on one silver coin per day? So, take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Don’t I have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Why are you envious when I am kind?’
So will it be: the last will be first, the first will be last.”

Reflections
“Go and work in my vineyard.”
Are we not brought into this world with a purpose? If we ob­ serve the different life­ forms of the Earth ­human community, each performs a distinctly important function that is not only beneficial to itself but also to others. If it does not function according to its na­ture, it disintegrates; it atrophies.
Countless of people go through their life without clear sense of purpose and direction. These are people who do things for the sake of doing them, or for the practical reason of earning a living. They do not question whether the things they do reflect their full potential and giftedness, or not.
Two aims of the task/mission God assigns to us: (1) the fulfill­ ment of the self; and (2) the flou­ rishing and fulfillment of the Earth’s community of life. When we do not carry out this task by utilizing the skills and giftedness bestowed on us, we fall short of what we have been created. By not working on our full potential and by denigra­ ting ourselves, we shortchange God, our Maker. Moreover, we are meant to be faithful to this task and bring it to completion, so that in the end we become worthy of the eternal reward.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019

Gospel: Matthew 19:23-30
Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I say to you: it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yes, believe me: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for the one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
On hearing this, the disciples were astonished and said, “Who, then, can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and answered, “For human beings it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
Then Peter spoke up and said, “You see, we have given up everything to follow you. What, then, will there be for us?”
Jesus answered, “You, who have followed me, listen to my words: on the Day of Renewal, when the Son of Man sits on his throne in glory, you, also, will sit, on twelve thrones, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. As for those who have left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or property for my Name’s sake, they will receive a hundredfold, and be given eternal life. Many who are now first, will be last, and many who are now last, will be first.

Reflections
“For God everything is possible.”
We are afraid to lose some­thing, or some things, that is why we cannot surrender to God’s will. Because once we give it all up, it would mean we would only have God to depend on and would also mean placing our complete trust in him alone an absolute reliance on his unfailing love. God’s will is demanding. When we cannot let go, when we are dominated by fear, divine power cannot operate in us; God’s grace cannot flow into our life. We are simply cut off from it.
So that all things become possible, an absolute trust in God is necessary. Trust connects us to God’s overflowing love. It conquers fear that weakens and paralyzes us. By trusting God, we allow him to touch our failings, our frailties, and our imperfec­tion, transforming them into something beyond what we can conceive of. By relying on his goodness, we set ourselves on solid ground, never to be shaken by the cares of the world, and by doubt and fear. And by trusting God, we can move mountains.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019