News - September 2023 RSS Feed

During the course of his public ministry, Jesus extended many invitations.  In all these invitations, he applied no pressure; he imposed no agenda; he forced no one to accept. He did, however, point out the consequences of ignoring or rejecting the invitation.

Today’s vineyard parable highlights the rejection the servants of God will inevitably suffer when they try to gather in the harvest of grapes in the Lord’s vineyard.  

With God’s help, there is always hope, even for the seemingly hopeless! The readings today urge us to keep our hope alive, and to place our hope in the power of Christ to transform us, to make all things new, to change our ways, our attitudes, our strategies, our predicaments.

There are some situations in life in which you want to scream: “it’s not fair!” Maybe Jesus is trying to tell us that the kingdom of heaven does not operate on the merit system. My friends, God is not fair by human standards… but God is exceedingly generous. So, let's simply rejoice in God’s generosity!

The simple moral of this story is that if we want the Lord to forgive our sins and shortcomings, we must follow suit and extend that forgiveness to others. 

Resolving conflicts in a genuine Christian manner is very hard to do… but it is our call, our duty, our responsibility, because we Christians love our neighbor as ourselves.