Saturday,
December 07, 2013
1st Week of Advent
St. Ambrose
1st Reading: Is 30:19–21, 23–26
Gospel: 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. We are that vineyard. That is why we should be concerned about how priests and religious are trained. 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 better off without shepherds.
To what avail is having a shepherd 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 this world.
It is better to have no shepherd than to have one who resist being roused from his comfort zones. Those who expect a lot of comfort will only make the burden of the sheep 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?
Let us pray not just for more priests but also for sincerity among seminarians to leave the seminary if they have ulterior motives. While it is true that the harvest is plenty and laborers are few, materialistic laborers are add-ons to the work in the vineyard. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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