It was there that I searched for You (St. Augustine)

     O Eternal truth, true love and beloved eternity. You are my God. To you do I sigh day and night. When I first came to know you, you drew me to yourself so that I might see that there were things for me to see, but that I myself was not yet ready to see them. Meanwhile you overcame the weakness of my vision, sending forth most strongly the beams of your light, and I trembled at once with love and dread. I learned that I was in a region unlike yours and far distant from you, and I thought I heard your voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men; grow then, and you will feed on me. Nor will you change me into yourself like bodily food, but you will be changed into me.” I sought a way to gain the strength which I needed to enjoy you. But I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who is above all, God blessed for ever. He was calling me and saying: I am the way of truth, I am the life. He was offering the food which I lacked the strength to take, the food he had mingled with our flesh. For the Word became flesh, that your wisdom, by which you created all things, might provide milk for us children. 

     Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace. 

--St. Augustine

Image source: https://godshotspot.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/spotlight-battleofgods.jpg
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God's gift to give (Fr. James Martin)

 

    A few years ago, I heard the interpretation that those who were hired last had been standing out in the sun all day, waiting their turn, and so the landowner is rewarding them. But that still reflects the idea that the landowner, a stand-in for God, must be “fair.” For Jesus, it’s just as important for the landowner to be merciful. Seen in this light, it’s a parable about generosity to the “last.” As Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., writes in the Sacra Pagina commentaries, the answer to the question of why latecomers receive the same pay is: “The kingdom is God’s gift to give and we must not begrudge God his generosity.” 

     “There is a balance between God’s justice and God’s mercy,” writes Father Harrington. “Those who were hired first receive a just reward…. The fact that the latecomers received the same reward can be credited to God’s mercy.” Thus, Harrington suggests that the usual title of this parable, which focuses on the workers, is misplaced. It is more appropriately called the “Parable of the Good Employer," because it is about goodness and mercy. 

--Fr. James Martin,
Facebook, September 23, 2024

Image source: Lucas Cranach, Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (15th c.), https://lucascranach.org/en/DE_ESKStMW_NONE-ESKStMW012/
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God is not a response to our mail order form (Bishop Rowan Williams)

   God is God. God is not a thing among other things. God is not an item in the world, and God is not a response to our mail order form. He doesn’t simply slot into what we think is intelligible or manageable. God is the infinite, unmanageable, unconditioned context of all that we are and we do, and so it’s not entirely surprising if we can’t boil that down into something we can manage. That’s why, of course, in Hebrew Scripture, when the people of Israel gather at Mount Sinai, the mountain is covered with cloud and fire, and God says to Moses: Keep your distance. I’m sorry. This is how I am. You’re not going to boil me down to something that’s manageable. 

    There’s always an innate depth, inaccessibility, unmanageability about this, and at times that comes home to us with enormous force when we would like there to be a simple answer — part of the burden of what Old and New Testaments alike say: Be careful of idolatry. You’re always prone to making a God you can manage. 

    That’s what idolatry boils down to. You can make that manageable God in any number of forms. You can make it in religious forms. You could make it in economic and social forms. Just be very conscious that, as the Lord says to Moses, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Don’t go putting in his place something which is a pseudo-God.

--Anglican Bishop Rowan Williams

Image source: https://bible.art/p/vsZsKRNJpwiRsJghlde3/god-spoke-to-the-israelite-s-from-the
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Seek the God who is seeking us (Sr. Joan Chittister)

There is only one vocation in life
and that is to seek the God
who is seeking us. 

--Sr. Joan Chittister

Image source 1: https://catholicreview.org/seven-surprising-places-to-find-god-this-summer/
Image source 2: https://studyprayserve.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/here-i-am-man.jpg

You too go into the vineyard (Cynthia Bourgeault)

    [In Sunday’s parable,] the vineyard, as it tends to be throughout Jesus’s teaching, is a symbol of the relational field, the dynamic interactiveness of the kingdom of God. 

    Whatever reason we may project onto the vineyard owner for bringing people in, what he actually states is that he’s bringing people in because he can’t stand to see them isolated and just sitting around on their own: “You too go into the vineyard.” The real fruit of this day is not a bunch of grapes getting harvested. It is human beings working together, doing something that’s dignified. You can imagine the songs, the work, and all the things that happen when you’re participating and engaged jointly in an activity. The idea of paying them the same simply invites people to put their attention on what the real proportions are. When “more and less” are introduced into the equation at the end of the parable, we’re just scattering our attention. 

    The bottom line is that everybody has enough. The ones that came in early thought the usual daily wage was fair. That’s taken care of. The real fruit being generated, just like grapes turn into wine, was the work together. In these circumstances, it’s fermented and transformed into some fragrance of human interactivity and abundance that doesn’t exist otherwise. 

    It’s not until you begin from the fullness of love, and the order and coherence that arise from it, that you can recognize what’s being said [in this parable] and how radical it is. 

    We get the invitation to go into the vineyard, but it’s only in stepping up, saying yes, and trusting the relational field that we’re going to actually be participants in the kingdom of God. 

--Cynthia Bourgeault

Image source: Vincent Van Gogh, Red Vineyards at Arles (1888), https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/09/18/gods-goodness-and-the-laborers-in-the-vineyard/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 20, 2026: Seek the Lord...

Seek the Lord...
How often do you find yourself looking for God? 

    Though we will certainly never really understand God – For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, the Lord tells Isaiah – we certainly can appreciate the wonderful benefits of relationship with the God who loved us into existence. And while we may turn our back on God, shutting ourselves off, forsaking God, God, for his part, encourages us always to return: Seek the Lord while he may be found, Isaiah reminds the people of Israel, for it is with God that we ultimately find life and love, mercy and forgiveness. Psalm 145 reminds us of God’s qualities that make this so: The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness… To sing God’s praises in this way is to make a confession of our acceptance of the terms of covenant, recognizing our desire for relationship, allowing the connection, restoring it if need be. God wants us to seek that relationship, one in which we will find compassion and justice on our journey. 

    Yet it is not necessarily ours to understand God’s justice either, as our gospel reading from Matthew demonstrates. When a vineyard owner pays the workers who arrive an hour before closing time the same wage as the workers who arrived in the early morning, our human hackles start to rise. That’s not fair! But again, my thoughts are not your thoughts: God makes it possible for all to live, the first to come to God as well as the last. Is it up to us to begrudge the on who comes at the last hour, or will we rejoice because they love the Lord? After all, they are following Isaiah’s directive: Seek the Lord… And God’s love is open to them as well. 

    God’s love is a free gift – wherever we might be. Paul tells the Philippians that whether he lives or dies, his desire is that Christ be magnified in his body; he has dedicated himself to the love of God revealed in Jesus, and spends his every waking hour sharing that Good News, fruitful labor that helps Paul to maintain his connection with the God who created him. Through obedience – conducting himself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, Paul demonstrates how to seek the Lord while he may be found… We, too, are called to seek the Lord through our attention to relationship, with God, with other, preaching the good news so long as we are able, magnifying Christ with our bodies, so that those who seek him may find him in the love we share. 

This “vintage” post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

A forgiving way of doing justice (Ronald Franz / Caitlin Morneau)

When you forgive, you love.
And when you love,
God’s light shines upon you.

–Ronald Franz,
qtd. in Into the Wild

    Forgiveness is fundamentally an individual act, but with social implications. Every harm has repercussions, rippling impacts through time and community. Really living into the fullness of forgiveness means moving toward as full a reclamation of human dignity and communion as possible. 

    When this becomes the way in which we move and live and have our being, suddenly seven times seventy becomes far more attainable — not a heroic act for the few. But we cannot do it alone. We need to encourage one another daily. And build up systems (legal and otherwise) that create vessels for mercy and grace to shape the labor of justice itself. 

    Because of Christ’s sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit, this forgiving way of doing justice is not out of reach. It is being taken up in communities across this country, and has been alive in native and indigenous cultures for generations. What’s more, it abides within each of us. We might need to peel back the layers of retribution and individualism that mask it, but at our core dwells this desire, God’s desire to love one another as God loves us. May it be so. Amen. 

--Caitlin Morneau

Image source 1: https://daily.jstor.org/catholics-against-racism/
Image source 2: https://catholicworker.substack.com/p/the-catholic-worker-calls-christians
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