Preparation for Total Consecration

WEEK 4:
KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD

The New Testament is largely the result of the impact made on the early Church by the risen Jesus; he is Lord. In that light they were 'christened' - baptised into his Church, and there contemplated and tried to live his teaching. We, like them, should want to enjoy a present relationship with our risen Lord as reflected in the Gospel.

Fifth Day: Mt. 20: 1-16

WHY BE JEALOUS?

Parable.The kingdom of God is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle ... and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you' ... Again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour he did the same, and about the eleventh hour ...
When evening came he said, 'Call the labourers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last' ... Those hired about the eleventh hour each received a denarius. Now the first grumbled, 'The last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the scorching heat'.
He replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'

Reflection.Evidently this is not an illustration from the Jerusalem Business School on how to manage a farm. Rather, it is an insight into the nature of God. Each casual labourer was paid a standard day's wage whatever the time worked. This caused understandable resentment. The explanation lay not in economics but in the nature of the landowner: 'Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Do you begrudge my generosity?'

Nobody is last. Surely the labourers were taken on at the eleventh hour not because the owner needed them, but that they needed him. They could have found their way to him if they were keen to work: 'Why do you stand here idle all day?'

Does my mind and heart reflect anything of the expansiveness of God? Do I see myself ever as the eleventh-hour labourer? As someone said, 'We will not get justice in this world, and we should pray that we do not get it in the next'. 'Do you begrudge my generosity!'

Prayer.Lord Jesus, your life and teaching reflect the generosity of God. My heart, perhaps, is not open enough to take it in. Am I ever sufficiently grateful that there is room in your kingdom for someone like me?

May your Mother, who knew God to bless lavishly those of no real status, help me, not to compare, but only to receive.

Montfort.'Jesus was given out of love and fashioned by love. He is, therefore, all love, or rather, the very love of the Father and the Holy Spirit' (LEW 118).