Texts taken from the “On Your Word” Missal September-October 2023

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) 
1st week, alternate cycle

FIRST READING

From the book of the prophet Isaiah (Is 55:6-9)
Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. – The word of the Lord. 

Commentary on the first reading

Isaiah’s text presents us with an apparent contradiction: on the one hand, there is an invitation to seek the Lord; on the other, it emphasizes his absolute difference from humanity. Nearness and otherness are two characteristics of God’s face. They may seem contradictory, but only if we can hold them together, without separating them or absolutizing one at the expense of the other, can we seek God and encounter his mystery. God draws near to our lives, but at the same time he asks us to open ourselves to his newness, without presuming to confine him within the patterns of our ways of imagining him. God’s criteria are very different from ours: he can fulfill promises and carry out plans of salvation that we cannot even imagine, and he can do so through people we would never have expected. To those who seek him, Jesus proposes abandoning everything, even our own way of reasoning, to open ourselves to his ways, which are higher than ours as the heavens are higher than the earth. The newness of his word must renew our lives. It is not possible to seek God without beginning a journey of conversion that leads us out of ourselves toward the transcendence of God and his newness.

SECOND READING

From the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Philippians (Phil 1:20c-24, 27a)
Brothers and sisters, Christ will be glorified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if living in the body means fruitful labor, I do not know which I should choose. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart this life and be with Christ, which is far better; but for your sake it is more necessary that I remain in the body. Therefore, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. – The word of the Lord.

Commentary on the second reading

The mystery of Christ has become one with the life of the apostle Paul, who writes the letter to the Philippians while in prison, awaiting a sentence of life or death. When one truly lives in God, his will becomes our highest aspiration. For this very reason, Paul faces a dilemma: desiring to leave this world to be definitively with Christ, his greatest joy, or desiring to live in order to bring many brothers and sisters to him. For this reason, the Apostle entrusts himself confidently to God’s will. How wonderful it would be if we too could live continually in this dimension of trusting surrender into the Lord’s hands! It is a new meaning of life, of human existence, consisting in communion with Jesus Christ who lives; not merely with a historical figure, a teacher of wisdom, or a religious leader, but with a man in whom God personally dwells! Little by little, you discover that everything that happens is a gift; there are no longer problems or crosses, but only opportunities to love him more and more according to his will and the situations he presents to you.

GOSPEL OF THE DAY

From the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 20:1-16)
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out again at about nine in the morning, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. He went out again at about noon and at three o’clock and did the same. Going out again at about five o’clock, he found others standing there and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those hired at about five o’clock came, each received a denarius. When the first came, they thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have treated them as equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last one the same as to you. Am I not free to do what I want with my own things? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.” – The Gospel of the Lord. 

Commentary on the Gospel of the day

Jesus tells the parable of the owner of a vineyard who, needing workers, went out from his house at different times of the day to recruit laborers. He did not go out just once. In the parable, Jesus says that he went out at least five times: at dawn, at nine, at noon, at three, and at five in the afternoon. There was great need in the vineyard, and this man spent almost all his time in the streets and squares of the town looking for workers. Think of those hired at the last hour, and how they must have felt, because at the end of the day they would have taken nothing home to feed their children. The owner of the vineyard also calls those whom no one else had hired for the day, considering them capable of working. Why does Jesus provoke this scandal among the listeners of that time and among us as well? Because his primary aim is not to establish a new economic school, but to reveal the identity of the Father, who is the true owner of the vineyard. This Father gives what is just in order to make life possible. May all those involved in pastoral ministry find a beautiful example in this parable and be moved to reach out to the weakest and most disadvantaged, giving them the joy of feeling useful in the Lord’s vineyard, even if only for one hour.