Sunday Meditation: The Invited and the Chosen

In the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year A, Jesus continues what Dr. Nina Heereman calls the “Temple Discourse.”  I have never heard anyone call this the “Temple Discourse.”  It would amount to when Jesus first enters the Temple in Mt 21:23 through chapter 23.  Jesus leaves the Temple to start chapter 24 which begins the End of Times Discourse.  This makes sense to call this the “Temple Discourse,” but the Gospel of Matthew has been known to be structured around five discourses (Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5 thru 7; Missionary, Mt 10; The Parabolic Discourse, Mt 13; Church Discourse, Mt 18; End of Times, Mt 24 & 25). Despite the logic, no search seems to come up with a Temple Discourse.

Today’s reading is Matthew’s version of the Parable of the Wedding Banquet.  Frankly I have to admit I have never cared for Matthew’s version.  The guest who does not have a wedding garment at the end of the parable is treated unjustly.  He was invited to the banquet and is thrown out because he didn’t wear a wedding garment.  So the casual biblical reader of which I once was one reacts emotionally.  But many parables have a paradoxical moment, a disorienting twist, to make a particular point, and the “unjust” treatment of the guest without a wedding garment is the paradoxical moment.  Don’t think of the guest’s treatment as unjust but that the garment symbolizes something in which the guest needed to have.  What it symbolizes Dr. Heereman points out.  The answer is found in the Book of Revelations, chapter 19.

Then I heard something like the sound of a great multitude or the sound of rushing water or mighty peals of thunder, as they said: “Alleluia!  The Lord has established his reign, [our] God, the almighty.  Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory.  For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready.  She was allowed to wear a bright, clean linen garment.”  (The linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones.) (Rev 19:6-8)

I’m not going to embed Dr. Nina’s exegesis but that is most helpful.  Though you may be invited to the Wedding Banquet, but you have to be spotless and worthy.  Dr. Brant Pitre explains it well from my post on this Gospel passage three years ago, and though he comes to the same conclusion as Dr. Nina, he finds a different allusion to the garment, this from Isaiah.

 

I will rejoice heartily in the LORD, my being exults in my God; for he has clothed me with garments of salvation, and wrapped me in a robe of justice, like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.  (Is 61:10)

In both allusions what we find is the garment of salvation are your righteous deeds and purity of soul.

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people

in parables, saying,

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king

who gave a wedding feast for his son.

He dispatched his servants

to summon the invited guests to the feast,

but they refused to come.

A second time he sent other servants, saying,

'Tell those invited: "Behold, I have prepared my banquet,

my calves and fattened cattle are killed,

and everything is ready; come to the feast."'

Some ignored the invitation and went away,

one to his farm, another to his business.

The rest laid hold of his servants,

mistreated them, and killed them.

The king was enraged and sent his troops,

destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

Then he said to his servants, 'The feast is ready,

but those who were invited were not worthy to come.

Go out, therefore, into the main roads

and invite to the feast whomever you find.'

The servants went out into the streets

and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,

and the hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to meet the guests,

he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.

The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it

that you came in here without a wedding garment?'

But he was reduced to silence.

Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet,

and cast him into the darkness outside,

where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.'

Many are invited, but few are chosen."

~Mt: 22:1-14

 

For today’s exegetical homily, I want to return to Fr. Geoffrey Plant.  His homilies run long and they disappear off YouTube after a few years.  But he really does a great job, and I will quote the passages that are especially insightful.  I especially found the comparison with Luke’s version very instructive.

 

Fr. Geoffrey:

Today's parable of the wedding banquet has a close parallel in Luke's Gospel.

Comparing the two versions helps us to appreciate the distinctive emphasis of each

evangelist.  So let us now place these two versions of the parable side by side and notice how they differ.

The first difference is the setting. In Matthew, Jesus tells this parable in the

presence of the chief priests and elders in the Temple on the Tuesday of Holy Week.  In Luke, it is told much earlier, while Jesus is still making his way towards

Jerusalem.

The banquet itself is also different. In Matthew, it is a wedding banquet given by a

king in honour of his son.  In Luke, it is simply a great banquet hosted by a wealthy man. He is not a king, and the meal is not connected with a wedding.

In both versions servants are sent out to summon those who have already been

invited. In both cases, however, those invited refuse to come.

The excuses are different. In Matthew, one man goes off to his farm and another to

his business.  In Luke, one man has bought five yoke of oxen and is on his way to try them out.  Another has just been married and says that he is unable to come.

At this point the stories begin to diverge more sharply. In Matthew the king sends

out a second group of servants. Perhaps Matthew intends us to see the first group

as the prophets whom God sent to Israel, and the second group as the apostles

whom Jesus sends out. Luke has no second dispatch of servants.

Matthew also introduces a much darker note. Some of those invited seize the

king's servants, mistreat them and kill them.  The king responds by sending his troops, destroying the murderers and burning their city. Nothing comparable appears in Luke's account.  There the householder becomes angry, but he does not retaliate.

Both stories now move in the same direction. Since those originally invited have

refused to come, the invitation is extended to others. In Matthew, the king orders

his servants to go to the crossroads and invite to the wedding everyone they can

find. In Luke, the servant is sent through the streets and alleys of the town to bring

in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.

In Matthew the wedding hall is filled with guests. In Luke, however, there is still

more room. The servant is therefore sent out a second time, this time to the roads

and hedgerows. He is to urge everyone he meets to come in because the

householder wants to make sure that his house is full. That is where Luke's version

ends.

Matthew, however, continues the story. As the king walks among his guests, he

discovers a man who is not wearing a wedding garment.

 

To a modern reader, a wedding banquet may seem simply an attractive

backdrop for a parable. To a first-century Jew, however, it evoked one of the

Old Testament's great images of God's final salvation. Israel looked forward to

the day when God would establish his kingdom, gather his scattered people,

defeat every enemy and restore creation itself. One of the favourite ways of

describing that future hope was as a great banquet prepared by God himself.

The classic passage is today's first reading from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 25:

"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines..."

This is no ordinary meal. It is the celebration of God's final victory. Isaiah continues:

"He will destroy on this mountain

the shroud that is cast over all peoples...

He will swallow up death forever.”

That is an extraordinary statement. The banquet is not simply about

abundance. It is about the defeat of death itself. It is a picture of the new age

when God will wipe away every tear, remove the disgrace of his people and

conquer death forever.

Nor is the banquet reserved for Israel alone. Isaiah speaks of "all peoples".  Centuries before Christ, the prophet already looks forward to a day when the

nations themselves will share in God's salvation.

By the time of Jesus, this vision of the great messianic banquet had become deeply embedded in Jewish hope. The faithful looked forward to the day when they would recline at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in God's kingdom.

The kingdom was imagined, not as an abstract idea, but as a joyful banquet celebrating God's definitive triumph over evil and death.

 

Matthew's story now presents us with a difficulty—one that has puzzled readers for

centuries. The first part of the story ends quite naturally. The invited guests refuse

to come. The king therefore sends his servants into the streets to gather everyone

they can find. Matthew even emphasises that they brought in "both bad and good,"

and so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

At that point the story appears complete. In fact, that is exactly where Luke's

version ends. Interestingly, the Church's Lectionary provides the option of ending

the Gospel at this point. The shorter form concludes with the banquet hall filled

with guests and omits the episode of the wedding garment altogether.

Matthew, however, continues. As the king walks through the banquet hall, he

notices one guest who is not wearing a wedding garment. He asks him, "Friend,

how did you get in here without a wedding garment?" The man is speechless.

The king orders him to be bound hand and foot and thrown into the outer darkness.

This is the only biblical passage I can remember my late father discussing with me.

He was struck by what seemed an obvious injustice. The guests had only just been

gathered in from the streets. How could one of them be condemned for not wearing

a wedding garment? It is a question that has stayed with me ever since.

After all, these guests had not planned to attend a royal wedding. They had been

going about their ordinary business when, quite unexpectedly, the king's servants

summoned them to the banquet. Some would have been labourers, others

beggars, others travellers. Was the king really expecting every citizen to carry

around a set of wedding garments on the off chance that they might one day

receive an invitation to a royal wedding?

Many scholars have suggested that Matthew has stitched together two originally

independent stories, and I find that suggestion persuasive. The first ends quite

naturally with the banquet hall being filled by those gathered from the highways and

byways. Matthew, however, also seems to have known another story about a guest

who attended a wedding banquet without the proper attire. Because both centred

on a banquet, he may have combined them into a single narrative.

 

Matthew would probably say to us, however, "Don't become so preoccupied with

the join that you miss the point of the second story." So what does he want to

teach us? The first thing to notice is that he says remarkably little about the

wedding garment itself. Instead, he draws our attention to the man's response—

or rather, to his lack of response.

"The man was silent." He does not protest that he has been treated unfairly. He

does not explain that he had been summoned from the streets without warning.

He offers no excuse, no defence, no justification.

William Bausch draws attention to this striking detail: "He was silent, notice. He

had not one word to say in his own defence, as surely he would have if he were

unjustly accused... He had nothing to say: no excuse, no explanation, no

protest... His silence branded him as guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt.” That

silence is the key to the story.

Donald Senior suggests that the soiled garment symbolises "a life that has

undergone no basic change, a life that has not produced fruits worthy of

repentance." In other words, the problem is not the clothing itself. The clothing

symbolises a life that has accepted the invitation but has refused to be

transformed by it.

Tom Wright brings the lesson into our own day: "We would prefer to hear a nice

story about God throwing the party open to everyone. We want—as people now

fashionably say—to be 'inclusive', to let everyone in. We don't want to know

about judgment on the wicked, or about demanding standards of holiness, or

about weeping and gnashing of teeth."

That observation strikes at the heart of the parable. We rightly rejoice that God's

invitation is extended to everyone. Matthew himself tells us that the king's

servants gathered "both bad and good." No one earns an invitation to the

banquet. But accepting the invitation is not the end of the story. It is the

beginning of a new way of life. What happens when someone finally stands

before God, looking back over a lifetime?

Now listen to how Fr. Geoffrey ties this with the ending of Graham Greene’s novel, The Power and the Glory.  You can find my posts on Greene’s novel here. 

For the pastoral homily I’m going to turn Fr. Peter Marselek of SOLT.

 

Fr. Peter:

There is a great wedding feast, but one individual arrives without a wedding garment. He is dressed incompatibly with the banquet and is therefore removed.  The wedding banquet represents heaven, communion with the most holy trinity, with God who is love itself.  St. Gregory the Great therefore identifies the wedding garment as charity. To be in God's presence means being able to participate in his love. Both receiving that love and sharing in it. This is why the wedding garment is so important.  Heaven is not simply a place to which we are admitted. [music] It is a life in which we participate. The very life and love of God. God therefore desires to prepare and transform our hearts now for the fullness of his presence in eternity. Today's gospel tells us that God invites everyone to salvation. The servants are sent out to gather everyone they can find, bad and good alike. God's invitation is extraordinarily generous.  But accepting the invitation is only the beginning. We must also allow his grace to transform us. The wedding garment then isn't an arbitrary condition for entering heaven. It represents our capacity to participate in heaven. Faith opens us to God's saving grace, but that grace must bear fruit in charity. Pope Benedict the 16th beautifully describes this garment as being woven on two looms, love of God and love of neighbor.

 

I like both popes identification of the symbolism: Pope St. Gregory’s the garment being charity and Pope Benedict XVI’s woven on the threads of love of God and love of neighbor.  It’s a reminder we should always be wearing this garment.

 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Many are invited, but few are chosen."

 

 

 

“Lead Me, Lord is a beautiful hymn for this Sunday.

 

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, longing for their Lord,

for God’s coming kingdom shall be theirs.

Blessed are the sorrowing, for they shall be consoled,

and the meek shall come to rule the world.

 

Refrain:

 

Lead me, Lord, lead me, Lord,

by the light of truth

to seek and to find the narrow way.

Be my way; be my truth;

be my life, my Lord, and lead me, Lord, today.

 

Blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be theirs,

and the pure in heart shall see their God.

Blest are they whose hunger only holiness can fill,

for I say they shall be satisfied.

 

Lead me, Lord, by the light of truth!

 

Faith Filled Friday: The Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi

I am a Lay Dominican, and the Dominican charism is the one that most fits me.  As youth, however, though not religious, I idolized St. Francis of Assisi.  I took Francis as my confirmation name.

October 4^th was the Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi but because it fell on a Sunday, the memorial was deferred to the Sunday celebration.  That was unfortunate this year, for this year marked the 800^th anniversary of St. Francis’ death.  I wanted to commemorate the anniversary, but I will do so here. 

Death must have been on Francis’ mind frequently.  One of his writings that has come down to us is a letter to the rulers of his day, warning them of the failure of their obligations.  Up front he asks them to consider their deaths:

To all podestàs, and consuls, judges and governors, in whatever part of the world, and to all others to whom this letter may come, Brother Francis, your little and contemptible servant, wishes health and peace to you.

Consider and see that the day of death draws nigh. I ask you, therefore, with such reverence as I can, not to forget the Lord on account of the cares and solicitudes of this world and not to turn aside from His commandments, for all those who forget Him and decline from His commandments are cursed and they shall be forgotten by Him.  And when the day of death comes, all that which they think they have shall be taken away from them.  And the wiser and more powerful they may have been in this world, so much the greater torments shall they endure in hell.

Repent, for the day of death is near!  That would be a short summary and a paraphrase from our Lord, who said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1: 15). 

St. Francis speaks of death in his famous poem, “The Canticle of the Sun.”  Toward the end, he devotes two stanzas to death.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.

SG News has this little video bio that will give you the salient marls of St. Francis’ life if you were not aware.

 

Which brings us to the Transitus of St. Francis.  What is the Transitus of St. Francis?  From the Franciscan Media:

On October 3, 1226, Francis of Assisi died. Franciscans worldwide observe this day as the Transitus: his journey from this life to the next. Every year, Franciscans all over the world celebrate the Transitus, or passing, of St. Francis with a memorial service that often includes a reenacting of St. Francis’ final hours, storytelling, and singing, keeping alive the spirituality that Francis and his early companions left us.

There is a wealth of information in that article written by Fr. Murray Bodo, OFM.  Fr. Murray recounts some of St. Francis’ aspects of his death.  For instance,

One of the brothers once asked St. Francis what kind of a death he hoped for: a quick, unexpected death or a prolonged, painful death. And St. Francis said, “Brother, I want whatever death God wants for me.”

I have always wanted a peaceful, easy death, but now St. Francis has challenged me.  I will have to want whatever God wants and needs for His purposes.

The last few year’s of Francis’s life, filled with illness and the painful effects of his stigmata, were difficult.  Fr. Murray tells of his condition shortly after receiving the stigmata, two years before his death.

When, a month or so later, he finally returned to Assisi, he went first to the monastery of St. Clare and her sisters, where a humble lean-to had been constructed on the side of the monastery. He was, practically speaking, blind from trachoma, an eye disease he had picked up in 1219 in Egypt during the Fifth Crusade. He was also suffering from what seems to have been tubercular leprosy, and he was hemorrhaging from the wounds of Christ.

This was the Middle Ages where medical science had not progressed very far, and Francis was probably one who was not cautious with his health.  Fr. Murray continues.

When he had been laid on the barren ground, Francis asked that the passage in John about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples be read aloud. When the Gospel words had been spoken, Francis responded by reciting his favorite psalm, 142, and asked those present to join in. A few days later, according to St. Bonaventure, “When all of the mysteries were fulfilled in him and that most holy soul was released from the flesh and absorbed into the abyss of the divine brightness, the blessed man fell asleep in the Lord.”

And finally,

It is said that one of the brothers saw the soul of Francis ascending straight to heaven. Brother Thomas of Celano, Francis’ first biographer, added these details about St. Francis’ death in his Treatise on the Miracles:

The larks are friends of daylight and shun the shadows of twilight. But on the eve that St. Francis passed from this world to Christ, just as twilight was descending, the larks rose up to the roof of his cell and began circling it with clamor of wingbeat and song. No one knew if they were singing with joy or sadness, for their voices were filled with joyful tears and sad joy, as if they were orphaned children weeping and singing their father into heaven. The city guards who were keeping watch there were filled with wonder, and they summoned others to witness the sight.

Even the birds were made aware of his death.  How fitting for the saint who loved all creatures. 

So the tradition among the Franciscans is to celebrate the Transitus with a reenactment of St. Francis’ passing.  My friend Kelly who is a Secular Franciscan—the name of their third order—has gone to many Transitus.  I would love to go one year.  Fr. Jim Kent OFM Conv at the Conventional Franciscan Friars website explains the ritual.

There is no one ritual for Transitus, and therefore many expressions have developed for this liturgy.  Certain prayers or writings of St. Francis and accounts from his early biographers are common.  One of them, “The Life of St. Francis” by Thomas of Celano, recalls how when Francis was dying he asked that the washing of the feet from Gospel of John be read.  This Scriptural passing is often included in the Transitus.  Since Francis spoke of dying as embracing Sister Death, the ritual is solemn but not sad and inspires the participants to richly live the Gospel until the end of their days.

Here is a three minute explanation of the Transitus with clips from an actual ceremony.

 

If you want to experience an actual full length Franciscan Transitus, here is an hour plus ceremony live by the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, Minnesota. 

 

Peace and all good. 

Sunday Meditation: The Confrontation Parable

In the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year A, Jesus comes to what amounts to a final confrontation with the temple elders.  He has entered Jerusalem as a messiah, He has taught as a prophet, He has violently cleansed the Temple with one of authority, He has made claims of hypocrisy against the elders, He has told them a parable of their disobedience, and now He will tell them a parable of their wickedness and God’s condemnation.  This will be the final straw for the religious hierarchy. 

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is not opaque.  The reference to Isaiah would have been widely known, especially to religious authorities.  The allegorical identifications are obvious.  The vineyard stands for Israel, the tenants in the parable stand for the religious leaders, the servants who are sent before the son are the ancient prophets, and the son who will be killed is the Son of God.  The parable becomes a clear indictment of the religious leaders.  Three years ago I embedded Dr. Brant Pitre’s explanation of the parable and it’s still worth going back to. 

Above I referred to this as Jesus’s final confrontation with the religious leaders, but perhaps the best characterization would be as “a decisive confrontation.  When asked by Jesus what the owner of the vineyard will do, one (or several) of the religious leaders heedlessly says the owner will put the tenants “to a wretched death.”  At that point Jesus has raised the stakes to an existential level, and the only way for the elders to win would be to put Jesus to death.  Or so they think.  Jesus concludes His exchange with “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you.”  Though it’s not in today’s lectionary passage, Matthew includes this coda to this section:

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them.  And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet (45-46). 

That is the exegesis of this Gospel reading.  I’ve noticed in my survey of homilies on this passage, the homilists may explain the rudiments of the exegesis, but the better homilies will tend toward the pastoral application for the congregation.  Are you like the religious leaders not bearing fruit?  Will you be put to a wretched end after your time has run out?

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:

"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."

~Mt: 21:33-43

 

 

Dr. Matthew Patrick Barber, a Catholic theologian with the Augustine Institute who I have heard speak elsewhere but only now discovered has a YouTube channel, finds a theological wrinkle that I did not hear elsewhere.

 

Dr. Barber:

And let's talk about the end of the parable. We read, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit." Now, this has often been read in terms of what is called replacement theology, and that is the idea that God is rejecting the Jewish people and now replacing Israel with a gentile church.  There are lots of problems with that reading. For one thing, it imagines that the early believers in Jesus, the early followers of Jesus, stopped seeing themselves as Israelites, as Jewish.  That's incorrect. When you read the New Testament, you see Paul, for example, is emphatic on this point. And in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus speaks of how the disciples will be punished in the synagogues. This is really important. For example, in Matthew 23, Jesus is condemning Pharisees for various things. And he says that he will send prophets and wise men and scribes. And says, "And some of them you will flog in your synagogues." That's Matthew 23:34.  Now, some will seize on the language there of their synagogues as evidence that the readers of the Gospel of Matthew no longer see themselves as Jewish. These approaches take their synagogues to imply the Jewish synagogues, right?

 

So what does it mean then when Jesus says the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to others? Who is the you Jesus is speaking to there? Well, it's important. Matthew makes it clear at the end of the scene, the end of the

Chapter 4: Leadership replacement story. Jesus tells the parable. We read, "Now the chief priests and the Pharisees heard this parable and they knew that he was speaking about them." So the point is not that the kingdom is being taken away from the Jews in general and given to non-Jewish people. The point is that the leaders are being replaced and they know the story is being told about them.  So the question is who are the new leaders? And I think it's clear the new leaders are the apostles. This is already suggested by a close reading of the gospel Matthew and other places. In Matthew 19 Jesus says that the 12 the 12 apostles will sit on 12 thrones and judge the 12 tribes. They are the eschatological judges, the eschatological leaders of Israel. Moreover, there are some fascinating parallels. I don't have time to get into all of this, but in Matthew 16, Jesus is talking to Peter and in Matthew 23, Jesus condemns the the Pharisees. There's some interesting connections here. Jesus gives to Peter the keys of the kingdom.  In Matthew 16, and Matthew 23, we read that the Pharisees literally key shut the kingdom. They lock people out of the kingdom. In Matthew uh 16, Jesus gives to Peter the authority to bind and loose. And in Matthew 23, the Pharisees bind heavy burdens. So there's a parallel there between Matthew 16, Matthew 23, I think the larger point is that the kingdom is being taken away from these leaders and given to new leaders that Jesus has appointed.

I have to admit, I was under the impression it was replacement theology.  That is brilliant. 

 

For the pastoral homily I’m going to turn to a Franciscan given that today happens to also be the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on the 800^th anniversary of his passing.  Let’s turn to Fr. Jonathon St. André, TOR of Franciscan University, who combines this homily with St. Francis.

 

Fr. Jonathon:

So I think I hit the jackpot today. I get to share reflection with you not only on the 27th Sunday in ordinary time but also on October 4th which is the feast of our holy father St. Francis of Assisi in the Jubilee year of St. Francis.  Last night in many places throughout the world was celebrated the transitus a beautiful prayer service where we commemorate Francis's death and passing into eternal life. And this is not just a celebration for Franciscan friars or sisters, but it's for everyone for the gift of St. Francis to the church and the gift of the gospel. And the gospel today for the 27th Sunday in ordinary time is the parable of the landowner.  And we hear about this land owner and he has builds a vineyard, puts a hedge around it, uh builds a well within it, then goes away on a journey and as it says he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.  Then he sends his servants as we know in the parable to come back and to reclaim the produce from the tenants. And of course the story goes that the tenants reject the servants who come and reject the overtures of the master to claim what is rightly his own.  There's a lot of ways we could go into this parable, but one of them that really strikes me today is to recognize that we are tenants of the Lord's vineyard. That we everything we have been given is from the Lord. Our bodies, our minds, our souls, it is all his. It belongs to him. In fact, St. Francis himself would say, "You only possess one thing, your sins.  That's the only thing that's our own.  Everything else is God's." And so, it makes sense that everything we do in our life would return, give an abundant return to the Lord…

 

Interestingly one of the main themes of the life of St. Francis was living penance. And we hear that word penance and sometimes we can think of that as what we say or do after our confession or we can think of it as a penitential practice in our life or what the attitude we should have during Lent and all those are true but a deeper fuller scriptural sense of penance means a love of God and a love of neighbor. It means an openness to conversion from our sins. It means a closeness to the Eucharist. And interestingly St. Francis says penance is about producing fruits.  So it matches the parable here. What are the fruits? The fruits of the Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Holy Spirit should be visible in our life. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control.  That people should see that we are living our lives in such a way that the kingdom of God is bearing fruit in us, that we the tenants of the vineyard are helping and cultivating the vines so that the new wine of the Holy Spirit is pouring out of us is pouring out upon people is pouring out upon the church.  So on this feast of St. Francis of Assisi. And at this occasion when we hear the parable of the landowner and in this time when we're called to recognize how am I a good tenant of what the Lord has given me in my life, we should ask ourself, how am I showing forth the fruits of the Holy Spirit?

 

That is excellent.  I hope to have a blog post during the week on the 800^th anniversary of St. Francis’ passing into new life.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “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."

 

 

For the hymn, how could we not have the “Prayer of St. Francis”?

 

Make me a channel of Your peace

Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love

Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord

And where there's doubt, true faith in You

 

Make me a channel of Your peace

Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope

Where there is darkness, only light

And where there's sadness, ever joy

 

Oh Master, grant that I may never seek

So much to be consoled as to console

To be understood as to understand

To be loved as to love with all my soul

 

Make me a channel of Your peace

It is pardoning that we are pardoned

In giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we're born to eternal life

 

And in dying we are born to eternal life

Eternal life

 

I love this hymn, and St. Francis of Assisi is one of the greatest saints ever.