Reflection and meditation on today’s Gospel / September 21, 2020 / Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Publicado el 20/09/2020 por monasterioguadalupe

Saint Matthew 9: 9-13: Vocation of the publican Matthew.

Today in the Gospel we see that the accusation of the Puritans to Jesus was really true: He goes with people with people of bad reputation. As he passed by, Jesus saw a man named Mateo, sitting at the tax counter, and said to him: «Follow me: he got up and followed him.» Matthew’s vocation is very significant. Jesus chooses a publican, that is, a tax collector in the service of Rome, the occupying power, and like all publicans, with a bad reputation among the people. Jesus gives him a vote of confidence, without asking him for public confessions of conversion. Matthew follows him with alacrity, leaving everything behind, and offers him a good meal at his house, to which he also invites other publicans, to the scandal of the «good guys. «It is the occasion for Jesus to express the purpose of his mission: «I did not come to call the just, but sinners».

Would we, if consulted, have called a tax collector as an apostle and witness to the gospel or as a member of our task force? Jesus, yes. He turned him «from publican to apostle,» as the prayer says. The sermon of Saint Bede that we read in the Office of Reading comments on it with delight. This is how Jesus was, understanding and tolerant. How are we? Perhaps uncompromising and puritanical, like the Pharisees who murmured about Jesus? «Go, learn what it means: I want mercy and not sacrifice.» Can we give a margin of confidence to those who have a bad reputation? Jesus gave it to Matthew and he fully responded. Thanks to him we have the gospel that bears his name, and generations and generations have known the Sermon on the Mount and the surprising news of the Beatitudes, and so many discourses and parables of Jesus.

Contemplating the example of Matthew, we can ask ourselves, first of all, if we follow Jesus with the same readiness as he: «Follow me …; he got up and followed him.» And if we are «evangelists», heralds of the Good News. Do we sow a little hope around us? St. Matthew set out to show that Jesus kept the promises of the Old Testament. Do we, like him, convey the conviction that in Jesus is God’s answer to all our questions?

Today Saint Matthew invited Jesus to eat. We do not invite him: we are invited by him to participate in the Eucharist, which is his Body and Blood, as food for our life. We are luckier than Mateo. Do we know how to take advantage of it? The prayer after communion will make us ask: «We have participated in the healthy joy that your apostle Saint Matthew experienced when having the Saviour himself as a guest in his home: grant us to continue to nourish ourselves always with the Body and Blood of Christ, not He has come to save the righteous, but sinners». That moment of encounter with Jesus will give us the light and strength we need for our evangelizing mission throughout the journey.

Peace and good

Fr. Antonio Majeesh George Kallely, OFM

Publicado en Lectio dominical, REFLEXIÓN Y MEDITACIÓN DEL EVANGELIO | Comentarios desactivados en Reflection and meditation on today’s Gospel / September 21, 2020 / Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Ordination of priests in Madrid / September 20, 2020.

Publicado el 20/09/2020 por monasterioguadalupe

 

At 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 19, 2020, in the San Antonio del Retiro parish church in Madrid, Mons. José Cobo Cano, auxiliary bishop of Madrid, conferred the Order of Priests on our Franciscan brothers, Fray José Daniel Llácer Ibáñez (Ayacor, Valencia, 1959) and Fray Miguel Ángel Coronado Velarde (Madrid 1972), from the Zaragoza and Cáceres fraternities, respectively.

Despite the time of stormy downpours that we suffer these days in the capital, aggravating the restrictive measures recently adopted in the face of the advance of coronavirus infections, the presence of friars, family members and friends of José Daniel and Miguel Ángel in the celebration was significant. The bishop repeatedly exhorted to give thanks for the new gift that Christ made to his Church in this time of pandemic, with more austere and less crowded rites, but that will mark the ministry of the elect, whom he recognized for their personal trajectory, mission and the charisma with which he was equipped before his admission to the priesthood.

The candidates were presented by Friar Juan Carlos Moya Ovejero, Provincial Minister, who was concelebrating with the Bishop together with the guardian of the local fraternity, Friar Saturnino Vidal Abellán, and some thirty priests of the Province and some of the secular clergy. They were joined by relatives of the ordinands, including Miguel Ángel’s father and sister, with relatives and friends of José Daniel; our students from Murcia, who served the altar; several Poor Clare sisters and other friars from a good portion of convents. The parish choir, led by Fray Manuel J. Madueño Moreno, parish priest of Cristo de la Paz, in the Carabanchel neighborhood, and several women from the parish, regular cooperators, took part.

Returning to their places of origin, after participating in the fraternal agape that was served in the crypt of the church, the misacantanos already celebrate their first Masses surrounded by family, friends and fraternities of the three Franciscan orders.

Go, therefore, with these lines the praise of Christ, high and eternal priest, and the intercession of our supplications so that, to whom the teacher entrusts the task of sanctifying, instructing and guiding, they do not decline in their ministry and in the ardor of its delivery.

 

Publicado en Noticias | Comentarios desactivados en Ordination of priests in Madrid / September 20, 2020.

XXV Sunday in Ordinary Time / September 20, 2020 / Fr. Antonio Majeesh George Kallely, OFM

Publicado el 20/09/2020 por monasterioguadalupe

Saint Mathew 20, 1-16

Hello friends and brothers: Peace and good

We begin our meditation on the word of the Lord

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN.

We invoke the Holy Spirit to help us understand and know the true mystery of the Lord’s word so that each day the beauty of the word touches us and transforms us from our entire person to live as children of God.

Today is the twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time/ We meditate on the reading of the Gospel according to Matthew 20, 1-16

The parable that we meditate today in the Gospel is in a certain way «scandalous», because it seems to favour a social injustice, or at least a certain «despotism» in the owner of the vineyard when it comes to paying the laborers. Now nobody would accept that one who works half the time as another, charges the same. In today’s world, forgiveness, or generosity, or gratuity does not enter too much. In the mind of God, yes. But Jesus’ intention is certainly not to teach us a lesson in social justice in work relationships, but rather to present, once again, the portrait of a God who is kindness and mercy, full of peace. Although we often do not understand God’s plans, these plans are full of love and grace, not just justice. the prophet Isaiah prepares us to hear this parable by reminding us that our ways are not God’s, nor are his plans our plans.

THEN THE MESSAGE OF THE LORD’S WORD TO US

In today’s parable we see that this goodness of God appears. The statement «I am good» is what gives meaning to the whole parable. It is not a lesson in wage justice – the owner of the vineyard pays everyone just enough – but in the generosity that God has, who admits as day laborers those who show up only at the last minute, without giving too much importance to this delay, and then he pays the latter more than they would have to do. God is generous. He does not reward only according to our merits, but according to his goodness. Your salvation is always free and free.

God is fair. But, in addition, and fundamentally, it is good. The apostle John told us that «he who does not love has not known God, because God is love.» We have to learn the ways of God, recognize his sovereign freedom, and not be scandalized because sometimes «the last are the first» and God is «too good» to sinners and also gives them his denarius, like Jesus to the good thief who at the last moment he showed signs of conversion. God continues to call young and old, strong and weak, men and women, religious and laity, etc. to work in his vineyard.

We would not have to project our calculations and measurements onto God. Sometimes we find ourselves perplexed before God, and we have no choice but to recognize that God is the Whole Other, that he is mysterious, that we cannot enclose him in our measurements, nor do our computer programming admit him. Sometimes we are silent before God. We don’t have an answer for everything. But what we can be sure of is that he does have it, that he loves us as a kind Father, who does not keep accounts of our «overtime», but gives us his gifts freely. He is not governed so much by justice, as by grace.

Well, my dear brothers and friends: to finish our meditation we are going to ask Saint Mary to help us to forgive and reconcile with our brothers and to wish to live and act like Jesus with our brothers. with mercy. We also ask for the brothers and sisters suffering from the coronavirus.

Peace and good

Publicado en REFLEXIÓN Y MEDITACIÓN DEL EVANGELIO | Comentarios desactivados en XXV Sunday in Ordinary Time / September 20, 2020 / Fr. Antonio Majeesh George Kallely, OFM