February 26, 2016 Friday 2nd Week of Lent 1st
Reading: Gen 37:3–4, 12–13a, 17b–28a Gospel: Mt 21:33–43, 45–46
Jesus said to the chief priests and elders, “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a hole for the winepress, built a watchtower, leased the vineyard to tenants and then went to a distant country. When harvest time came, the landowner sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. But the tenants seized his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned another.Again the owner sent more servants, but they were treated in the same way.Finally, he sent his son, thinking: ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they thought: ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let us kill him and his inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do with the tenants when he comes?” They said to him, “He will bring those evil to an evil end, and lease the vineyard to others who will pay him in due time.”And Jesus replied, “Have you never read what the Scriptures say? The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; and we marvel at it. Therefore I say to you: the kingdom of heaven will be taken from you and given to a people who will yield a harvest.When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these parables, they realized that Jesus was referring to them. They would have arrested him, but they were afraid of the crowd who regarded him as a prophet.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Truth has a bigger chance of blowing up proud hearts when packaged in a good story. Consider what happened to the Pharisees. At the start they enjoyed listening to Jesus’ story. They were caught unprepared when the story began to shift and attacked their hardness of hearts. It could have been the turning point of their lives. But they were not open to grace. They sought instead to have Jesus arrested.
This priest-writer makes it a point to package homilies in humorous anecdotes to conceal the scathing message. When people laugh, they suspend judgment, making it possible for the message to get past the listener’s ego. Reaching the inner sanctum, the message can start working by the power of the Holy Spirit. When truth hits its mark, proud hearts disintegrate. If the person is open to grace, he can pick up the broken pieces and present them to the Lord in humility. God will then mold his heart and fashion it into the image of the heart of Jesus.—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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