Fr. JC Maximilian

How many of you have seen a vineyard up close? I am not sure if the few grape vines that my grandmother had in her backyard qualified as a vineyard, but it did teach me something about growing grapes. Grandma had to carefully keep the ground around the vines clean, and be watchful for when the vines would fall to the ground and when they did fall she would go pick them up and carefully tie them to the terraces that would give them support so that they could grow more fully and bear fruit. Of course what I remember most about my grandmother’s grape vines was when she would pick the fruit and make her homemade jelly. With all due respect to Smuckers, there was something special about grandma’s jelly.

The vineyard is an ancient symbol of Israel, God’s Chosen People. There was a promise that each family would have a fig tree, a flock and a vineyard in the Promise Land, for these three things were symbolic that all of their needs would be taken care of. From the flock the people received not only meat, but also wool and hides for clothing, from the fig tree a sweet food, and from the vine wine for celebration. Of course God’s Faithful People realized that it was God who was filling all of their needs, and giving them the good life.

It was because of this close association of the vineyard with Israel that the prophet Isaiah used the vineyard in his prophecy. He taught the people that God plants the seed of life in each of us, and as the seed in the soil seems to develop and grow in a mysterious way, so does the mystery of God’s infinite love for us is manifested in the wonder of the love of husband and wife.

God plants the “good” seed, and expects a bountiful harvest. Sadly, too often, instead of the good grapes of God’s grace being manifested in our lives we produce the wild grapes of selfishness, fear, self-centered pleasure, which blooms in the morning but fades with the noonday sun. Too often we fail to recognize God as the creator, the owner of the vineyard of our lives, and when that happens our lives become meaningless and fruitless.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus takes up the well-known image of the vineyard, but He goes beyond just talking about God planting the seed. In Jesus’ parable, the owner of the vineyard has tenant farmers to work in his field. This is an indication that if we are to call ourselves the faithful followers of God, then we must be cooperators in doing God’s work of love in the world. However in the parable the tenant farmers become the “wild grapes” that Isaiah spoke about. Out of greed and selfishness they kill the servants of the owner, and then when the owner sends his son to them, they kill the son, and why? “Then we will get rich.” Of course what we often think will make us rich will in fact make us poor – possibly even eternally poor.

Today throughout our country we celebrate Respect Life Sunday. It is a time for us to look at the Culture of Death that continues to spread its “wild grapes” throughout our society. Why do people have abortions? Do you honestly think they want to kill a baby? No! That is why the try to deceive themselves by calling it a fetus, a clump of cells, anything other than a baby. People kill because they are afraid, or they are blinded by selfishness, or are confused by sin. They have allowed the false voices of this world to drown out the loving voice of God. In their fear, their confusion, their selfishness they kill; the unborn child, the elderly person, the infirm – even the Son of God. Of course they try to cover this killing up by saying that it is freedom, but as Pope Benedict XVI said in his homily at his installation, “The freedom to kill is not true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery.”

What are we, as committed Catholics, to do? St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading that we are to cling to “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious….” Of course the true, the honorable, the just, the pure, the lovely, the gracious is God and His Divine will. The only antidote to the sins of selfishness and greed, and the fears that fuel the Culture of Death is Love, goodness and truth. If we live the Gospel of life, we will cultivate God’s vineyard so that it will bear only the finest and truest of fruit unto eternal life.

This is not only the task of a few committed souls. By our baptism, and empowered by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit which we received in a fuller way in the sacrament of Confirmation, we are all called to be good workers in the vineyard of the Lord. While our state of life gives us different responsibilities, each of us must devote our lives to building up the Culture of Life. We must be witnesses to God’s love and mercy in a world that is too often filled with hatred and fear and selfishness. In a special way, the Second Vatican Council said that you, the Catholic lay faithful must bring the Good News to the public square and the market place. That means you must voice your opposition to the issues that are most promoting the Culture of Death – abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and attacks on the traditional family. To fail to do so because we fear being disliked or making others uncomfortable makes us wild grapes and wicked tenants. We must boldly and courageously walk as the daughters and sons of God. St. Paul’s words to the Christians at Philippi must continue to speak to us, “Keep on doing what you have learned and received, and heard and seen…” so that the promise St. Paul made to them will also be ours, “Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

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Jesus, as the Divine Logos (“Word”), is eternal. He always was, is, and always will be. However, as the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel makes clear, “The Word (in the Greek, Logos) became flesh and dwelt among us.” In other words, the Eternal Son entered into time, into history, by becoming the Incarnate Word. Since Jesus lived in a particular period of history, and in a particular culture, He used the language, expressions, and images of that culture at that time in history. While the words of Scripture are truly Living words which continue to have meaning and value for us today (they are eternal), the manner of their expression can be difficult to understand and fully appreciate at times because they are “dated.” For example, what is a “denarius”? We do not use that term today, in English (it was equal to one day’s pay). To fully appreciate the Eternal Word being expressed in Scripture we often need to have it brought into terms that we understand today. This is why in the seminary, more than any other single subject, the Scriptures are studied. It is the purpose of the homily to explain the Living Word of Scripture.

The GIRM #65 states, “The homily is part of the Liturgy and is strongly recommended, for it is necessary for the nurturing of the Christian life.” For this reason, the homily really should never be omitted on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and it is highly recommended even at daily Mass, particularly in the seasons of Advent and Lent. The homily should be an explanation of some aspect of the Scripture readings for that Mass or some other text from the Mass (e.g., explaining the Eucharistic Prayer, talking about the Solemnity, feast, or saint of the day). The homilist is suppose to take into account “both the mystery being celebrated and the particular needs of the listeners” (GIRM #65). One thing this suggests is that as a priest gets to know his congregation better, his homily should start to be geared toward their own manner of expression, images, and even challenge the particular congregation in the areas of the Christian life they need to work on to a greater extent. The homily may only be given by an ordained minister.

Sometimes you might hear someone make a distinction between a homily and a sermon. Some people might say that a sermon is done at a setting other than Mass, or more instructional and old-fashioned, whereas a homily is done at Mass and focuses on the Scriptures. As one author put it, “the idea that there is a subtle difference in content is moonshine….” (Randolph, Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread, p. 80). Basically the difference is one of languages; in Greek the word homilia means sermon or “homily,” whereas in Latin the word is sermo. For some reason, after Vatican Council II, the Greek terms became more in fashion instead of the Latin (as a side note: Vatican Council II did not “forbid” the use of Latin and mandate the use of the vernacular. While the Council did suggest that the use of the vernacular be expanded, it explicitly stated that the Latin language was to be maintained in the Liturgy, especially the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, to facilitate the celebration of Mass when the Faithful from different countries and/or language groups are present. So, how’s your Latin?).

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“It’s not fair!” How often do we hear those words? If you are parents of young children, I am sure that you have those words more than a few times — “Why can Susie go to the movies but I can’t? It’s not fair!” or “Why can Johnny stay up that late by I can’t? It’s not fair!” If we are honest with ourselves I am sure we can all remember times when we have uttered those words, or words just like them. I know that more than once, after finding out six months after being ordained a priest that I had cancer, I had those very thoughts. It just didn’t seem fair.

In today’s first reading we hear the Israelites, who are in exile, grumbling that God is not being fair. If you read the Old Testament a lot you will notice that the ancient Israelites seemed to grumble a lot against God. In today’s reading they complain that it is not fair that a person who had been virtuous most of their lives, but had then committed iniquity would then be punished, while a person who had lived a wicked life but had repented and did what was right would be given eternal life.

What is it that God wanted from them, and us today? In a word, God wants obedience. If we had to sum up the entire project of the spiritual life in a single word, other than love, that word would be obedience. Just look at Salvation History. God created us in His own Divine Image and Likeness, and wanted to share His eternal life with us. He promised all this to our first parents, but they disobeyed God’s simple command not to eat from the one tree, and as a result sin and death entered the world. Fortunately for us, God did not abandon us in our sin and death, rather He sent His only begotten Son into the world to save us and to redeem us. How did Jesus become our Savior and Redeemer? In today’s second reading St. Paul records for us one of the first Christian hymns which answers this question, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). It was Christ’s perfect obedience that made up for our disobedience. As followers of Christ we are called to model our lives on his, which means that we must become obedient to our Heavenly Father, just as Jesus is.

What does it mean to be obedient? The word comes from a Latin word which means to listen, but there is much more to it than just hearing what is being said. We see that from today’s Gospel. The first son listened to what his father said to him, even intensely enough to realize that his father wanted him to say, “OK, I’ll go work in the field.” However he did not go. In the parable we see that it is not just hear what God says to us, but it is doing what He says. It is this openness to hear God’s will, His Good News, which led the tax collectors and prostitutes to give up their wicked ways at the preaching of John the Baptist so as to follow God. This is why Jesus said that they were being saved, whereas those who were only giving lip service to God, namely the Scribes and the Pharisees who only wanted God on their terms, were being condemned.

Obedience requires us to make an act of Faith. C.S. Lewis, in the second of his science fiction novels, notes that if we just do what makes sense to us then we are merely following our reason. Obedience requires us to do what we are told because of our faith in the one who tells us what to do; it takes us beyond the limits of our reason.

Love is essential to Christian obedience. Because we know that God loves us, and that He keeps His promises to us, we place our faith in Him. Our faith is our loving response to God’s love in our lives. In faith we trust in God’s plan for us, even when we do not fully understand the “what’s” and the “whys” and the “where-forths.”

“The practice of Christian obedience unites us to the mystery of the Cross and our Redemption. The person who sets limits on his obedience is consequently setting limits on his union with Christ” (Fernandez, In Conversation with God, Volume 5, p. 109). Let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, the model par excellance of Christian obedience, to assist us with her prayers so that we may imitate Christ through our humble obedience to our Heavenly Father.

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If you are someone who likes to leave a comment to this blog (though there are not many of you), you will notice a small, and yes, annoying change. Due to the consistent annoyance of spammers leaving automatic comments each time I posted an entry, I have initiated a process so that when you want to leave a comment you will be shown a screen with a word in weird print, which you will need to type. This stops the automatic spammers. I hope it is not too much of an inconvenience.

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The committee of liturgists that were charged with revising the Mass in the late 1960s, originally proposed that there would be several Responsorial Psalms during the Mass, including one just prior to the proclamation of the Gospel. However, the group of bishops responsible for overseeing this committee rejected this idea. All that remains is the Gospel Acclamation. For most of the year this consists of the acclamation “Alleluia!” bracketing a verse that tries to draw our attention to the importance of the Gospel reading that will be proclaimed. Since the Gospel Acclamation is meant to be a rather triumphant greeting of the Lord who is about to speak to us in the Gospel, the preference is for this acclamation to be sung. If the Gospel Acclamation is not sung it may be omitted (GIRM #63, only at Mass when there is only one reading before the Gospel, therefore it is never just recited at a Sunday Mass); if it is recited it should be spoken with vigor. Because the word “Alleluia!” is a sort of joyful shout, it is considered inappropriate during the Lenten season, and is replaced by another phrase. Of course, for the Proclamation of the Gospel all the people stand.

The Gospels are the story about what Jesus said and did. While there is certainly a biographical character to the Gospels, they are more “portraits” of the life of Jesus rather than “pictures.” One characteristic of the Gospels, which makes them often more easy to understand, is that can be broken into short sections which can be understood on their own. We call these sections “pericopes.” For any one Sunday, a complete story or section of teaching from the Gospel is read. Often one Sunday’s Gospel reading immediately follows the previous week’s Gospel reading.

There are several actions that the priest or deacon does in the act of Proclaiming the Gospel. If a deacon is assisting at the Mass, he should be given the preference in proclaiming the Gospel. During the Gospel Acclamation, the deacon stands before the presiding priest and says, “Father, give me your blessing,” to which the priest responds, “The Lord be in your heart and on your lips that you may worthily proclaim his gospel. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit.” If there is no deacon assisting at the Mass, the priest bows before the Altar and inaudibly says, “Almighty God, cleanse my heart and lips that I may worthily proclaim your gospel.” After greeting the People with “The Lord be with your,” and receiving their “And also with you,” the deacon or priest proclaims, “A reading from the holy gospel according to (N).” He then makes the sign of the cross on the book, and then on his forehead, lips and breast. Strictly speaking, the congregation is not asked to mimic this action, although it seems to have become customary in most places. After proclaiming the Gospel, as the congregation responds, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ,” the deacon or priest kisses the book and says inaudibly, “May the words of the gospel wipe away our sins.” If the Bishop is presiding at the Mass, the deacon or priest does not kiss the book, but rather brings the Book of the Gospel to the Bishop, as the Apostle and Guardian of the Gospel for the diocese, to kiss; all should remain standing until the Bishop kisses the Book of the Gospel, before sitting for the homily.

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