Inclusion Awareness Sunday! God Always Cares For His People!
Inclusion Awareness Sunday! God Always Cares For His People!
In the month of October, we take time to reflect on the dignity of life: life from the womb to the tomb. Last weekend we prayed for unborn babies, pregnant mothers, and babies aborted and healing of their parents. This weekend we celebrate Inclusion Awareness Day: reflect and respect people who have different abilities. Respect Life Month we celebrate life with our abilities and disAbilities, our strength and weakness. We are one family. Inclusion Awareness Sunday is an opportunity to reflect on how our parish communities include everyone in the community by looking at our abilities, rather than looking at disAbilities. Everyone has something to offer. We all come together to celebrate our faith.
Last couple of weeks the Gospel led us to the vineyard. This Sunday we see in the book of Isaiah, (meaning the Lord is salvation) and the Gospel of Matthew the vineyard. The theme of today’s readings is God’s love and care for his people and the necessity of bearing fruit in the Christian life. In the first reading, called “Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard,” the prophet describes God's care for his people and expectations. The “vineyard” is the long-standing symbol for the people of Israel (27:2; Psalm 80:9, 14, 15; Jeremiah 2:21; 12:10; Ezekiel 17:7; Hosea 10:1; Nahum 2:2). Isaiah describes God’s care for them, but they yielded was wild grapes. God asks, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?” New Israel, the Church is expected to show our gratitude to God by bearing the fruits of the Kingdom. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God. On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again. That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly cultivator. Yet the true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing.”
The Gospel of Matthew presents to us the parable of the Wicked Tenants. In this parable, each of the details is important and symbolic. The owner of the vineyard is God, the vineyard is Jerusalem. The tenants were Israel’s leaders, and God’s servants were prophets, who were sent to warn the laborers. When they refused to listen to the prophets, God sent his Son, who was rejected and killed. This parable tells us much about God, his patience, his judgment, and above all it talks about Jesus' sacrifice.
God transferred his kingdom from the tenants of the Old Covenant to the shepherds of the New Covenant. Jesus gave the answer to Peter’s question, “What will there be for us?”, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:27-28).
The parable concludes with a picture of the stone. Psalm 118:22: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Isaiah 28:16: “Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation.” There are many more places in the Old Testament. These pictures of stone are summed up in Jesus. Jesus is the foundation on which everything is built, and the cornerstone holds everything together. It remains solid and unified through the authority and ministry of the Apostles and their successors.
In the second reading Paul insists that if we pray about our problems rather than worry about them, God will post a guard around our minds to protect us from the doubts and disturbances that weaken our confidence in his fatherly care. In the Gospel of Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus gives us similar instructions. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2633 says, “When we share in God's saving love, we understand that every need can become the object of petition. Christ, who assumed all things in order to redeem all things, is glorified by what we ask the Father in his name. It is with this confidence that St. James and St. Paul exhort us to pray at all times.”
Today we, the Church, are the vineyard of Christ. God gave us everything to bear good fruits. Through Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, he gave us Sacraments. Through baptism, we embrace the new life and through the reception of the Sacraments, God strengthens us to bear fruit. In the Sacrament of Sacraments - Eucharist – Jesus shares with us his very life – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He wants to remain with us, so he left us the Eucharist – nourishment for our journey. When we come for the Eucharist, we need to bring our joy filled moments and sorrowful; our strengths and weaknesses, our abilities and disAbilities and offer to him and ask him to touch and transform our lives, so we can go out and live the gift he shared with us – Eucharist – in our daily lives and bear good fruits.