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Day: September 20, 2008

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Homilies,

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First reading: Isaiah 55:6-9
Psalm: Ps 145:2-3,8-9,17-18
Epistle: Philippians 1:20-24,27
Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16

Seek the LORD while he may be found,
call him while he is near.

Today’s reading and Gospel present a description of a relationship. I have to ask, what kind of relationship do you envision, based on these readings?

St. Paul describes a relationship with Jesus Christ and a relationship with those he is teaching. Paul transitions between a hope for death, a death in which he sees himself as living in Christ, and the Churches’ need for him:

Yet that I remain in the flesh
is more necessary for your benefit.

Do we imagine that Paul is conflicted, that he would rather be dead than here? Of course that was not so. Paul saw that the relationship between the Churches, God, and himself were a continuum. It wasn’t Paul and the Churches versus Paul and Christ, but Paul, working for Christ, and making Him known to the Churches.

That sort of relationship bore a lot of fruit. It was sacrificial, in keeping with Jesus’ example, and it was fulfilling because it carried out God’s mandate – that all come to know Him through the work of His disciples.

Paul understood that cooperation is necessary. That working with and for God was not just necessary, but that it resulted in a reward greater than any treasure. The treasure, the reward that comes from our work, is eternal life in heaven. God’s eternal reward for those who cooperate is the culmination, the pinnacle, of the relationships Paul was building: Paul to God, God to the Churches, Paul to the Churches.

Brothers and sisters,

Jesus likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a landowner seeking workers. He says:

After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage,
he sent them into his vineyard.

Isn’t that remarkable? God actually bargains with us and pays us for our work. Now from earliest childhood we were told that we must not be selfish, that we have to be humble. We are to be polite, let others choose first, we shouldn’t take too much, we shouldn’t consider ourselves as entitled. Yet here we are working out an employment contract with God. Today we hear that God comes, asks us what we want for our work, agrees to a wage, and pays us for our work.

We all know that God has no needs or wants. We know that we can offer nothing to assure our salvation, no work, to task, no effort will earn our keep, yet He has told us that He will pay, that He will remunerate us, for work He does not need, but wants.

Consider that. God enters into relationship with us. We are not slaves to a master; slaves that would have an expectation of what? We are not robots, automatons put here to carry out orders without thinking. Rather, God has set out to enter into a relationship with us because He want us. He offers us the big payoff for the work we do in reaching others, in building relationships with God. We cannot earn that recompense, God doesn’t need it, but God offers it for the work He asks us to perform.

My friends,

That is the key to today’s message. Jesus likens the Kingdom to a landowner, but not any landowner. This landowner needs nothing, yet He hires us anyway. In complete and absolute generosity this landowner agrees to pay us for work He doesn’t need and that we don’t do all that well. He does it because He loves us, because He is generous, and most of all because He wants this relationship with us and with those He asks us to evangelize.

Today isn’t about a conflict between the workers, those working a few hours versus those working all day. It is not about the difference between born members of the Church and last minute converts. It isn’t about the discrepancy between those who cook, working their fingers to the bone day and night, and those that come at the last minute, who put out a few place settings and sit down to eat. It is the fact that all the workers, the long-timers and the last minute folks — all of whom God has no need of — are unworthy of any payment, yet are paid beyond measure.

That is the relationship. God to Church, God to man, the Church to man. Because God has chosen to enter into relationship with us, because He desires our cooperation, He has chosen to pay us for every meager, and vastly unworthy, word we utter and action we take, in furtherance of the Kingdom.

God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.

We cannot reckon why God has chosen us for a relationship, why He seeks our work, and why He pays us generously, unworthy though we are. He just does it because it is His will. So let us rejoice in His mercy, His generosity, His decision to be in relationship with us. We should sing with the psalmist:

Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.

Rejoicing let’s get to work, offering our hearts, hands, and voices like Paul did in building up the Church, in building God’s Kingdom, in bringing all those who have failed to recognize Him to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us do so without judgment as to the quality of our work or the time we have invested. Let us focus on the assured reward awaiting all who have a relationship with God. Amen.

Fathers, PNCC

September 20 – St. Basil from the Homilies on the Hexaemeron

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” I stop struck with admiration at this thought. What shall I first say? Where shall I begin my story? Shall I show forth the vanity of the Gentiles? Shall I exalt the truth of our faith? The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken, each being overturned by its successor. It is vain to refute them; they are sufficient in themselves to destroy one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of a God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad consequences. Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union, the nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce births and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their consistency to the strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider’s web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency! It is because they knew not how to say “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that was all was given up to chance. To guard us against this error the writer on the creation, from the very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of God; “In the beginning God created.” What a glorious order! He first establishes a beginning, so that it might not be supposed that the world never had a beginning. Then he adds “Created” to show that which was made was a very small part of the power of the Creator. In the same way that the potter, after having made with equal pains a great number of vessels, has not exhausted either his art or his talent; thus the Maker of the Universe, whose creative power, far from being bounded by one world, could extend to the infinite, needed only the impulse of His will to bring the immensities of the visible world into being. If then the world has a beginning, and if it has been created, enquire who gave it this beginning, and who was the Creator: or rather, in the fear that human reasonings may make you wander from the truth, Moses has anticipated enquiry by engraving in our hearts, as a seal and a safeguard, the awful name of God: “In the beginning God created“—” It is He, beneficent Nature, Goodness without measure, a worthy object of love for all beings endowed with reason, the beauty the most to be desired, the origin of all that exists, the source of life, intellectual light, impenetrable wisdom, it is He who “in the beginning created heaven and earth.” — Homily I.

Current Events, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Polkas at the Pavilion Festival today in Rothschild, WI

From the Waussau Daily Herald: Polka, pierogies take center stage at Pavilion

During last year’s Polkas at the Pavilion, the floor of the Pavilion was hopping almost as much as the dancers. This year, organizers hope to have an even bigger crowd for the daylong event Saturday, Sept. 20.

“Last year, we had around 900 people in attendance and raised almost $9,000 for the pavilion,” said organizer Ron Raczkowski. “We’re trying to build on that for this year.”

Raczkowski, along with his wife, Kathy, and brother, Dan, started the event after attending a rock music event at the pavilion and thought it would be fun to fill the 6,725 square foot building with polkas. They got eight polka bands together, organized refreshments and donated all the proceeds to pavilion restoration efforts.

“We had a blast,” Raczkowski said. “It was really fun seeing all the different musicians mingling with the crowd.”

…

The success of last year’s event allowed the Raczkowskis to increase the number of bands this year.

“All the bands said yes to donating their time last year, not knowing how the crowd would be,” Raczkowski said. “But when they saw how big the crowd was, they all said yes again for this year. We even got two more to come.”

The event also will feature a polka dancing competition.

…

Our Saviors National Catholic Church in Mosinee will be selling authentic Polish food including four types of pierogies, golobki and kielbasa, said the Rev. Marion Talaga.

“Last year was wonderful. People loved the golobki and the pierogi and the Polish sausage with the real Polish sauerkraut,” he said.

Details:

What: Polkas at the Pavilion
When: Noon to midnight Saturday, Sept. 20
Where: Rothschild Pavilion, 1104 Park St., Rothschild
Cost: $10 for ages 18 and older; $8 ages 12 to 17; children younger than 12 get in free.
Contact: 715-571-8236 or 715-359-3660

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