Wednesday,
August 17, 2016
20th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Ez 34: 1-11
Gospel: Mt 20:1-16
Jesus said to his disciples, “This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven. A landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the workers a salary of a silver coin for the day, and sent them to his vineyard.
“He went out again at about nine in the morning, and seeing others idle in the square, he said to them: ‘You, too, go to my vineyard and I will pay you what is just.’ So they went.
“The owner went out at midday and again at three in the afternoon, and he did the same. Finally he went out at the last working hour – it was the eleventh – and he saw others standing there. So he said to them: ‘Why do you stay idle the whole day?’ They answered: ‘Because no one has hired us.’ The master said: ‘Go and work in my vine yard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager: ‘Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ Those who had come to work at the eleventh hour turned up and were given a denarius each (a silver coin). When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received a denarius each. So, on receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner.
“They said: ‘These last hardly worked an hour, yet you have treated them the same as us who have endured the day’s burden and heat.’ The owner said to one of them: ‘Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on a denarius a day? So take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Don’t I have the right to do as I please with my money? Why are you envious when I am kind?’
“So will it be: the last will be first, the first will be last.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Jesus showed the extent of God’s mercy by way of a parable featuring an employer that accommodates last-minute workers without diminution of daily wage. God’s mercy is broad enough to cover hardened sinners who procrastinate over their conversion. His mercy has enough provision of patience elastic enough to overstretch for those who repent only at the hour of their death. Won’t this amount to injustice to those faithful from the start? No! Salvation is gratuitous and is not demandable by anyone, not even by those who invoke hard-earned spirituality. God can do as he pleases with the gift of salvation. Moreover, God is not capricious. When he tempers justice with so much mercy it is to give the sinner a chance to repent. Envious? That sinner could be you! – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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