Giving God His Harvest

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Oct. 2, 2011 (Mt 21:33-43)

"Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.

Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, 'They will respect my son.' But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.' They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?" They answered him, "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times." Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes'? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

Jesus' parable in the Gospel today presents salvation history. God is the owner and Israel, God's people, is the vineyard. The tenants to whom the owner entrusted the care of the vineyard are the leaders of the house of Israel. Throughout history, God has been gracious to Israel. He saved them from slavery and made a covenant with them. And He expected them to be faithful to Him. He sent them His prophets to remind them that they must be loyal to Him and that they must live fruitful lives and live up to the privilege of being God's people. But these prophets were killed and their message was ignored. But then happens the unimaginable. God sent His only Son to the vineyard to show us how to be fruitful and to give us an example of obedience to God.

In retelling the whole story, Jesus reminds Israel and their leaders, and even us, who are also God's people, that we have to do our part. The story is not only about God giving and giving because He loves mankind. God's love for us demands fruit - a faith response manifested not only in a firm belief and a deep devotion, but also in concrete actions.

This is what Jesus is telling us today. God planted in our hearts the seed of faith, and He entrusted us to nurture this and to let it grow and bear fruit. All that we have are from Him - our talents, our abilities, our lives and our very being. Therefore, we must make something of all His gifts so that we may offer Him back the fruits He deserves and expects from us.

Yes it is true that we belong to God. Yet, not only us, but everything we do and everything we produce are supposed to be God's. When we do not do what is right, we deprive God of the goodness we ought to have. If we sin, we offer to God an act that is not pleasing to Him. But when we obey His will, following the example of the Son whom He sent us, we allow ourselves to be totally His; our very being, our actions and the fruits that we shall bear become totally God's.

It is no easy task to produce a bountiful harvest. But God already did part of the work. All we need to do is to follow Jesus' example of obedience to God and to allow ourselves to receive and nurture the graces God gives us. In time, we will produce God's harvest. And we will be His loyal tenants and fruitful vineyard.

Give and Take Mercy

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sept. 11, 2011 (Mt 18:21-35)

Then Peter approaching asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.' Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.

When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, 'Pay back what you owe.' Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt.

Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?' Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart."

We are made in the image and likeness of God. Because of this, we have the ability to emulate certain attributes of God. Being merciful is one of these attributes. Every time we forgive our brothers who have wronged us, we participate in God's mercy and forgiveness; we become instruments of Divine Mercy. We become "merciful as the Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36). And we prove to be "like God when mercy seasons justice", as Portia, from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, puts it.

In the same way that we are able to love God and our neighbor because it is God who first loved us, we are also able to show mercy because we have been shown mercy. We are all sinners and God is always ready to forgive us every time we come to Him with sincere sorrow for our sins. God forgives us no matter how grave our sins are and even when we commit the same sins over and over again. He went even further and sent His Son to die for us to be freed from sin. Such is Divine Mercy, and precisely because we experience so great a compassion that we are expected to be merciful to others who sin against us. We cannot pray for forgiveness from God if we ourselves do not know how to forgive. Again Portia says it well: "We do pray for mercy. And that same prayer doth teach us to render the deeds of mercy." We also say it well when we pray the Our Father: "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."

God forgives us out of His great love for us. In the standards of justice, He should have let us be damned because of our sins. But because of His Divine Mercy, He forgives us and He even let His Son suffer our punishment; thus in the cross, God's mercy and justice met. It is quite unimaginable yet very marvelous that we would be worthy of God's forgiveness. We are merely His creatures and when we sin and wander far from Him, why should He bother to seek us, to forgive us and to restore a loving relationship with us? We can only wonder why God thought we were worth forgiving.

In God, we can find reason to forgive even those who have done the worst things to us. Sometimes, we excuse ourselves from forgiving by saying that we have been so good to our neighbors and they should not have wronged us. But God, who is the Supreme Good, never made this an excuse. He, most of all, does not deserve all the hurt we give Him, but He still forgives us anyway. So what else is our excuse?

Forgiving may be a difficult task. God never expected us to do it with ease, but He expects us to do it anyway. Forgiveness should slowly take place even as we go through the process of healing. God forgives us even if we are not worth forgiving and even if our sins are so grave. So too, we must forgive anyone who offends us no matter how badly they hurt us. And as forgiveness is an imperative from God, surely He will help us to accomplish this difficult task.

So let us make it our prayer that we may be more forgiving. May we pray that God help us to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. Through this, since to forgive is divine, we could make it a heaven here on earth!

To Be Our Brothers' Keepers

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Sept. 4, 2011 (Mt 18:15-20)

"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that 'every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

It is clear from Jesus' words that He wanted to establish a Church, a community of believers. Two Sundays ago, we witnessed how He established His Church upon Peter, the rock. His apostles and disciples are the first members of His Church.

In today's Gospel, we witness how Jesus instructs His disciples like a father gives advice to his children. Here, we can see clearly that Jesus desires that His followers should live as a community, living a common way of life that He Himself taught them. He constantly preached to them about many things, knowing that someday when He ascends into heaven, the Holy Spirit will remind them of all these teachings and empower them to carry these out (cf. Jn 14:26).

In exhorting His disciples to try and win back their brother who sins against them, Jesus is in effect reminding them of the importance of one another. Instead of holding a grudge, a Christian ought to be more concerned about the fact that his brother sinned and that sin ruins the harmony within the Church. In introducing this communal mentality, Jesus rejects the notion that men ought to be concerned only about his own salvation. Jesus reminds us that our fellow Christians are our brothers and sisters. And a Christian is always his brothers' keeper.

At the end of His exhortation, Jesus says that a brother who sins and does not listen even to the Church should be treated as if he were a tax collector or a Gentile. But this does not mean we must discriminate unrepentant members of the Church. After all, how did Jesus treat the Gentiles and tax collectors? Did He not treat them with respect and love? And did He not wait patiently for their repentance? So also must we treat our unrepentant brethren. After doing our best to win them back, we have nothing left to do but pray that they may find their way back to God and to His Church again.

To be a true follower of Christ, we must not avoid the community of believers who also wish to follow Him. And we must see others who do not believe in Christ as people who are as of yet lost but will soon be found. As He said in the Gospel, Jesus is present in His Church and His presence gives strength to this community of believers in order for its members to carry out His challenging teachings.

As the Church, may we also pray for what Jesus prayed for: that we may be one (cf. Jn 17:21). True enough, even as we need Jesus to strengthen us, we need our fellow believers to help us as we journey towards Jesus' Kingdom.