Breaking the Word: The Minding is for the Crossing

Sunday, September 24, 2023

The Minding is for the Crossing

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

109th World Day of Migrants & Refugees

Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9; Psalm 144 (145):2-3, 8-9, 17-18; Philippians 1:20-24, 27; Matthew 20:1-16

Picture: By AXP Photography on Unsplash

Please mind the gap. My dear friends, do these words ring a bell? As many of us know, this friendly warning is usually heard on the MRT. Reminding commuters to take care when crossing between the platform and the train. Please mind the gap. In effect, this is also what our scriptures are telling us today. Warning us that there is a wide and easily forgotten gap between God’s point of view and ours. That the heavens are as high above earth, as God’s ways are above our ways.

Isn’t this what the gospel parable illustrates? By painting a scenario in which a bunch of labourers are given the same wage for different durations of work, the story stirs our indignation at the apparent unfairness of it all. How could the latecomers be paid the same as those who started first? Surely those who worked longer deserve more! And yet, doesn’t this objection mirror the angry reaction of the religious authorities, when they saw Jesus mixing with tax collectors and prostitutes? Could he be implying that God actually sees and treats those latecomers to the kingdom in the same way that God sees and treats pious and respectable people like us? But why be envious because God is generous?

Following the logic of the parable, what if we were to go a little further? What if the labourers were paid the same wage for playing different roles in the vineyard? The supervisor and the cleaner, the winemaker and the grape-picker, the general manager and the pantry lady… All paid the same. What if the women were paid the same as the men? The foreigners the same as the locals? Which is not to say that we should adopt such a pay-structure if we were to actually run a vineyard. After all, a parable is not meant to be taken literally.

What the parable does is highlight the real possibility that our first impression of any given situation might well be quite far from God’s take on it. And that’s not all. If the scriptures warn us to mind the gap between our perspective and God’s, it’s only to encourage us to cross over from the one to the other. To seek the Lord while he may be found. Just like St Paul is doing in the second reading. He who once persecuted Christians now centres his whole life on Christ. Such that he even feels torn between life and death, between remaining at work in the vineyard, and going to his eternal reward. For either way, he will be glorifying the Lord. Either way, he has safely crossed over into God’s kingdom.

Just like on the MRT, what the scriptures offer us is not just a warning to mind the gap, but also an invitation to cross over it. Which may explain the location of this parable in Matthew’s gospel, sandwiched between the call of the rich young man and Jesus’ third prediction of his Passion. As he did the rich young man (19:21), the Lord is calling us to leave the proud platform of our narrow worldly perspectives, and follow him on the humble and loving train to Calvary and beyond.

Sisters and brothers, how might we help one another to better mind the gap, so as to safely make the crossing today?

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Breaking News: Easter

The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful exultation as one feast day, or better as one "great Sunday." These above all others are the days for the singing of the Alleluia. The Sundays of this season rank as the paschal Sundays and, after Easter Sunday itself, are called the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Sundays of Easter. The period of fifty sacred days ends on Pentecost Sunday. The first eight days of the Easter season make up the octave of Easter and are celebrated as solemnities of the Lord. On the fortieth day after Easter the Ascension is celebrated, except in places where, not being a holyday of obligation, it has been transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter (see no. 7).[R4] The weekdays after the Ascension until the Saturday before Pentecost inclusive are a preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, 22-26

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19

Sunday, September 24, 2023

The Minding is for the Crossing

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