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Á¦¸ñ Short sermon on the parable of the Father of the Family and his vineyard -Septuagesima(2021.1.31)
ÀÛ¼ºÀÚ °ü¸®ÀÚ ÀÛ¼ºÀÏ 2021-02-03






Short sermon on the parable of the Father of the Family and his vineyard - Septuagesima(2021.1.31)


Let us make some considerations about the parable of the Gospel today.


1.  Presentation of the parable of the Gospel

The Father of the Family is God. The vine means two things: our soul, as the Ecclesiasticus says: "Asthe vine, I have brought forth a pleasant odour" (Eccli 24:23), or the Church (Cf. Ps 79:9), as St. Gregory says. The Father of the family who goes out to hire workers is God who calls us to cultivate our souls and work in his Church in order to produce the wine of Charity, through which God is loved and glorified above all things. The salary given to the workers is the reward of eternal happiness.


2. Criterion of our judgement
The workers who came in the evening received an equal salary to those who worked since the morning, because they were more zealous and generous at the service of God than the first ones.This shows that the judgement of Our Lord Jesus Christ will be more about the zeal and perfection we put into the service of God than about the length of our service. Remember and compare the attitude of the rich young man who kept the Commandments of God from his youth but who refused to follow Our Lord in the way of the evangelical counsels, with the attitude of St. Mary Magdalene who was a public sinner but who after her conversion faithfully followed Our Lord up to the Cross.
 
3 Warning against lukewarmness

Through today's Epistle and Gospel, the Church wants to encourage us to spiritual fervour and to warn us against spiritual lukewarmness. 
 Whatcharacterises a soul touched by spiritual lukewarmness? It is what we see in the dissatisfied workers of the Gospel: fulfiling outwardlyour religious duties without lively inner love for God; complaining that what the Good Lord asks us to do is difficult and tiring; complaining that the Good Lord never gives us enough as a reward; being jealous and envious of those who devote themselves generously and untiredly to the service of God and of our neighbour.
 
4.  Remedies against spiritual lukewarmness
What to do to get out of such lukewarmness? We should imitate what the last workers of the Parable indicate: to offer ourselves with good will to God; to humble ourselves by often remembering that we are useless servants and that we do not deserve to be invited to Heaven; to work for and help the others without expecting any recognition from them, remembering the words of St. Paul: "It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive" (Acts 20:35). Finally, there is nothing better than to meditate often on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus. In it, the fire of charity is so intense that we cannot stay close to it without getting in fire ourselves; in it, Our Lord¡¯s generosity is so heroic that we can only be ashamed of our selfishness.


May Our Lady of Compassion guide us to an always greater fervour in God¡¯s service. Amen.