Scripture Reflections for the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“How come we suffer? You know, it's not a cop-out, it's just the truth to say 'Typically, I don't know.'”

“he is already enjoying in the reality of his sanctified flesh a fruit which derives from the presence of the divine life in his own”

“Notions of fairness and justice are definitely needed in the way we live and work, but not to the exclusion of love.”

“Judging and condemning people will not help to heal our world, but rather will make the walls that divide God’s people higher”

“God’s calling us to follow Him in life, so we can see the joy that is in all of us, and see Him in all those around us”

“But the gospel story is really not about pay scales, wages, and workers’ rights. That’s not Jesus’ point. The story is about a God who gives us more than we have a right to, who wants to bless us with more.”

“We are called to rejoice in the awesome scale of God’s goodness when we see God extend his gifts and mercy to others”

“The Christian response to the good fortune of others is not to feel aggrieved and resentful, but to rejoice and be glad with them as members of the one body of Christ”

“in today’s parable, and in the provisions for the poor he included in the law of Moses, the Divine Householder asks us not to humiliate the needy, but to accord them as much self-respect as possible”

“Through the gift of planting, tending and inviting us to labour in his vineyard, God establishes a relationship of love with us, which acknowledges our intrinsic worth as human beings and goes beyond this in offering us a share in his own life”

“This is not some drudgery that we're forced to go through in order to get some reward. But rather we must see the path of love as itself already an anticipation of Heaven.”

“Who are the latecomers in our lives that we have trouble accepting?”

“How much time I waste fussing about things that don't matter at all like: who gets more credit? Who's at the front of the line? Rather we've been given this stunning privilege of contributing to the mission of the Kingdom of God.”

“The Bible wants us to enter into a true friendship with God whereby we fall in love not with his benefits but with him”

“The gospel parable would seem strange as an economic model where money is the bottom line but is better understood in a system where mutual love and caring is the guiding principle”

“It’s not about the paycheck. It’s about doing what we can, then letting God be God. God saves us because of his generous care for us, not because we work and earn it.”

“God is never hidden from his people. On the contrary, it is their sins that pull them far away from their God, because his presence is incompatible with iniquities...It is his inability to understand this distance created by his sins that makes him to see God as being hidden away from him.”

“Each of us is profoundly, perfectly, loved by God, and variously gifted by God. The variety of the gifts is not a measure of the love we receive, but indicative of the diverse parts we are to play in the building up of God’s kingdom.”

“Paul just wants communion with Christ. That is quite a contrast to the Gospel parable, where the workers don’t want a relationship with the vineyard owner, they want more pay.”

“Our task is to trust in God’s love for each one of us, not limiting God to our puny stature but rejoicing in the God whose generosity fills us again and again to overflowing, pressed down and running over”

“He doesn’t necessarily think that he has never done anything wrong. On the contrary he believes that what Jesus has done is so great that it can overcome any of his faults.”

“You see, today’s parable is about blindness, the blindness that so may of us have to the blessings of God in our life. The parable warns us that we will never be able to see God’s generosity to us as long as we look with jealous eyes.”

“The idea now is to move into the space of God as best we can. To see the world from his perspective and then we have a revolutionized sense of what true justice is and then we live in an attitude of gratitude, not resentment.”

“What looks like deep injustice or simply dumb suffering can in fact, the Bible says, be ingredient in God's overall design”

“Who are we to be passing judgment on God's justice?”

“how God distributes his graces, that's God's business. It's not our business to ask 'why?' in a defiant way but rather it seems to me it's our business to ask 'why?' with a sense of awe and wonder, putting ourselves in the context of God's infinite justice.”