Scripture Reflections for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“And keep that in mind as you're moving through your day and you're making moral choice after moral choice, you're affecting your world, you're also defining the person you are becoming”

“For us sinners the game is always filling up, right? 'I got this empty, you know, cage that I got to fill up with the goods of the world.' That's why I'm not happy...but the weird truth of the very heart of our faith is that God is not about filling up but emptying out.”

“Humiliation in the extreme, that's how low the Son of God went, friends, in order to find us. There's Christianity.”

“It's not taking that matters, it's giving away”

“everyone who comes into the world comes into the world for God's purposes, to find his or her vocation and destiny in Christ. When we see them that way then it's relatively easy to think of them as more important than ourselves because they have an infinite value.”

“A very good way of changing is emulating the gifts of others because God has not made us the same. We are different. Some people excel at gifts that we do not possess. It is by appreciating the difference between us that we can begin to grow in areas where we are weak.”

“The seed that was planted needed time to grow. And therein is the awesome beauty of his kingdom, of his grace in our lives, and of a God who will address us tenderly as his children and will wait for us.”

“At such points we say yes with our lips, but our hearts do not follow. We may be simply convincing ourselves that we are right, rather than knowing why we should be so sure.”

“It’s possible, then, to get distracted or misled on the way to God. It’s possible even to do the terrible thing of rejecting God and his love. We must never think, however, that it’s too late for repentance, in our own or in other’s cases.”

“They felt how they had to struggle to reach, and keep safe, their favoured status. They seem to have little or no understanding of the love in forgiveness. Perhaps love had just ceased to be, in the world they had made and maintained with regulations.”

“Do we claim to be devout, religious people, who are willing to obey God, while, in fact, refusing to do his will?”

“It is easy to say yes because we do not always know what is what is involved in the task to which we are committing ourselves. Doubts, panic, fears begin to overwhelm us and so it is easy for us to change our ‘yes’.”

“The truth is, that when we are able to admit our faults, when we can own the mistakes that we have made, we are not submitting to defeat and failure. We are, instead, taking the first step toward healing and success.”

“One of the beautiful things about God is his enduring grace, forgiveness and love for us. God doesn't give up on us even when our backs are turned and we keep saying 'no.' God patiently waits for the 'yes', our 'yes' in whatever form that 'yes' takes.”

“Do I show mercy or do I stick to the rules? How does my decision affect the rest of the community? What ought to be the relationship between mercy and law? What is fair? How do I decide?”

“I don’t think of procrastination as disobedience. But, when I read this Gospel, I, like the Pharisees, am the first son who says yes to God when He puts something on my conscience, but my obedience does not always take priority over what my mind and will see as important.”

“we often fall into the temptation of thinking God’s punishment of our sins does not represent the idea of him being a merciful and loving Father”

“God’s vineyard needs our tender pruning and care. God’s people need our “Yes,” not our disregard or narrow-mindedness.”

“Don’t leave Mass thinking the Gospel wasn’t speaking about you”

“We know the answer. Every time. Every time the Holy Spirit is there, nudging us, and we know what the right thing is, but so many times we choose to do what feels better at the time, so satisfy that desire, that emotion that we are feeling, because we think it will make us feel good.”

“neither son in Jesus’ parable is a particularly good model for how we should respond to God’s invitation to work with him and for him for the building up of the Kingdom of Heaven: one son failed in word and the other in deed. Much better to model our behaviour on Jesus himself”

“This should be a bit of a warning to us, that it is ok to strive to overcome our mortal sins, but don’t become overly scrupulous over perfection”

“To understand the evil that we live in our world today, it is necessary to reflect on our present reality”

“One can and should stand before God, individually and assume spiritual responsibility. One ought not to hide behind or lose oneself in the collective.”

“God's power is precisely in his capacity to give himself away”