Dear Friends,

While we celebrate the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, this day; the Church traditionally remembers the life of St. Francis of Assisi, whose 800th anniversary of his death we celebrate this year. St. Francis of Assisi is quoted as saying: “Keep a clear eye towards life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s creatures. What you are in His sight is what you are—and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received … but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.” (my emphasis) Such words express the soul of a person whose priorities are properly ordered: first, God; second, understanding one’s proper relationship with God; and third, fulfilling one’s destiny in time and eternity by accepting and living in accord with the loving design of the Creator. Through grace, his capacity to embrace the fullness of reality (as it is), and his profound faith in the God of Love who created all that is; St. Francis conformed his life so intimately to that of Christ Jesus, that not only in his soul, but also in his body … the whole of his life. In imitating the Divine Self-Gift to humanity, despite the profound sacrifice such love demands in this world (the realm of death), St. Francis gives witness to the possibility that all human beings, created in God’s own image and likeness, are endowed with the capacity to love (capax Dei) … the very life of God Himself. Our response and responsibility is to receive it gratefully and share it generously.

Did you hear the Gospel today? Did you listen to the parable Jesus told? It has to be to be right up there with the top 5 most disturbing stories that He ever shared! In what world could people be so obtuse that they would not accept the reality of the world in which they live: first, the authority of the landowner; second, their relationship with him as those given the opportunity to work in his vineyard; and third, they engage in all sorts of untruthful, divisive and destructive thoughts and actions in an attempt to form the reality in which they live (through the largess of the landowner) according to their own selfish design to subject it to their control?

Inasmuch as Jesus is telling the story, we can safely assume to understand that the landowner—who paid for and “owned” the land, who planted the vineyard and the hedge around it, who built the tower in the vineyard and leased it and entrusted his livelihood to tenants while he was away on a journey—was in no way abusive or duplicitous in his relationship with the tenants. So how can the tenants in any way think that they have any “right” to possess, control and disrespect that which already exists, simply because they think it so, no matter how illogical, fraudulent or irresponsible their idea is? And yet, this is what we hear Jesus telling not only the crowd some 2000 years ago, but to every subsequent generation of His disciples. It’s amazing how things do not change and how, as a human race, we have not learned from the mistakes of the past.

Thus, the final words of today’s Gospel should not be dismissed too lightly in our hearing them. For within them are encapsulated the “secret” to happiness. Jesus says: “Therefore, I say to you, he kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit." The warning of His words is that if we just settle for the pleasures of this world as the standard of “the good life,” failing to include in our perspective the significance of the Presence of God and the responsibility we bear for the state of our own immortal souls, we risk losing the promise of salvation, not as a punishment imposed by God, but by our own free choice not to receive the gift given. What is perceived as folly in the world is the wisdom of God’s perspective to life and the design of His unconditional love. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are often opposed. St. Francis of Assisi understood this and prayed: “O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Take heed, then, of St. Paul’s words today, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

e of good cheer and have a blessed week!

Msgr. Grous