A Reflection for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7 Philippians 4: 6-9 Matthew 21: 33-43
Lights are on for a long time at St. Joseph Catholic School. I walk my dog a little before seven each weekday morning. Even in the dark of winter, the lights are lit in the principal’s classroom. In the evening, I am out just after dusk, which has now moved closer to eight but was nigh unto nine when the school year began. The lights are on in the classroom of our newest teacher, who has been an educator for years. She and her husband are empty nesters. As they passed me last week, I commented, “Catherine, such long hours. You must have a very patient husband.”
“Too patient,” her husband answered for her.
Catherine follows a pattern set by Leslie, a woman who joined us after retiring from public education. She felt the Lord was asking her to give a little more. Seeing her blue Jeep Cherokee over so many long weekend hours, I have joked with her, “Leslie, you do know that you can’t live here. You have to go home to sleep.”
How much time does one need to prepare? How much labor does it involve? More than we realize. Those who envy scholastic schedules and calendars do not realize that “being there” for students begins long before they arrive.
Whether it is good or bad that comes your way, neither does so by circumventing the Lord’s care and concern for your life.
It is the same with the Lord. Being there for us means being prepared.
My friend had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside;
he spaded it, cleared it of stones,
and planted the choicest vines;
within it he built a watchtower,
and hewed out a wine press.
Then he looked for the crop of grapes,
but what it yielded was wild grapes (Is 5:1-2).
As you encounter each hour of your life, know that the Lord has gone before you. God knows each moment and shapes it, and only then allows you to enter. Whether it is good or bad that comes your way, neither does so by circumventing the Lord’s care and concern for your life.
Our lives do not run ahead of God. We do not deal with what comes, hoping that the Lord will catch up later. The events of our lives are neither too minor nor too momentary for the one who creates time to serve his will. God cannot be caught unprepared.
The duty of discipleship—what really does take time for most of us—is learning to recognize God’s beloved face in the very moment it appears.
We are the ones who need time to deal with what happens to us in the course of time. Each moment of life has its purpose. Indeed, an essential task of prayer and reflection is to discern that direction. In prayer, the meaning of any given moment can come into focus. St. Ignatius of Loyola once said that even if the pope were to order his Company of Jesus to be disbanded, he would only require 15 minutes in prayer to compose himself and to move on.
For us as well, being there means being prepared. Prayer does that also. St. Francis de Sales suggested that we use our imaginations in prayer to picture “to ourselves the Savior in his sacred humanity as if he were near us, just as we sometimes imagine a friend to be present” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 2.2). God gave our imaginations to us, not only to free us from the weight of the current moment, but also as a way of being present to us.
The scriptures tell us that God goes ahead and provides for us like the teacher who spends so many hours preparing for students. They also insist that we strive mightily to recognize the Lord in the moment. Otherwise, we may find ourselves rejecting the dear Son of the vineyard owner.
God creates time. The Father rules over it. The Spirit quickens and imbues it. And the Son comes to us, making himself present to us in each moment of our lives. The duty of discipleship—what really does take time for most of us—is learning to recognize God’s beloved face in the very moment it appears.
Read more on this Sunday's readings
- Proclaim God's justice, even when rejected., by Jamie L. Waters
- Why it hurts so much when a loved one leaves the church, by the Rev. Terrance Klein (2017)
