Saturday, December 9, 20171st Week of Advent 1st Reading: Is 30:19–21, 23–26Gospel:Mt 9:35—10:1, 5a, 6–8
Jesus went around all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom, and he cured every sickness and disease. When he saw the crowds he was moved with pity, for they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the workers are only few. Ask the master of the harvest to send workers to gather his harvest.” Then he called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority over the unclean spirits to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness. Jesus sent these twelve on mission with the instruction: “Do not visit pagan territory and do not enter a Samaritan town. Go instead to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. “Go and proclaim this message: The kingdom of heaven is near. Heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons. You received this as a gift, so give it as a gift.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
The vineyard of the Lord is a lot of work for priests and religious. We are that vineyard. That is why we should be concerned about how priests and religious are trained. Already about a decade ago a gathering of seminary formators from Northern Luzon released their findings that seminarians suffer from extended adolescence, resist being roused from their comfort zones, easily succumb to materialism, and submit to a pattern of thinking independent from doctrine and dogma. If this has gone from bad to worse through the years we should do something lest we end up safer without shepherds.
To what avail is having shepherds who submit to a pattern of thinking independent of doctrine and dogma? A blind leading another blind will end up in the canal. Better go without a shepherd than to have one who succumbs to materialism. Such a one will not take his sheep beyond his world.
Priesthood and religious life is essentially a life of service where there is least expectation of comfort. Those who do expect a lot of comfort will not only do nothing to lighten the burden of the sheep but will even make them heavier. To what avail is having a shepherd on an extended adolescence? Heaven belongs to childlike people, not to childish ones. Why should we follow a shepherd to whom heaven does not belong?
While it is true that the harvest is plenty and laborers are few, materialistic laborers are add-ons to the work in the vineyard. —(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:[email protected].
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