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| Photo by Juan Guajardo/NTC |
Memorial of Pope Saint Pius X
August 21, 2019
Fort Worth Convention Center
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 21-23, 25-27
1st Thessalonians 2:2-8
Matthew 20:1-16
Estamos aquí porque somos llamados por Cristo como miembros de Su Pueblo y cómo trabajadores en Su viña. Hemos a encontrado a Cristo y nos ha llamado. Cristo es El Viñador y la Iglesia es la vid. Somos hijos de la Luz verdadera y brilla en nosotros por Su gracia. El siglo pasado era una época sangrienta a causa de la influencia de idealismo moderno — un actitud del egoísmo y ateísmo. Era un siglo de dos guerras mundiales y genocidio. Era una época de la oscuridad. “Levántate y resplandece, Jerusalén, porque ha llegado tu luz y la gloria del Señor alborea sobre ti. Mira: las tinieblas cubren la tierra y espesa niebla envuelve a los pueblos; pero sobre ti resplandece el Señor” (Isaías 60:1-2).
Why does God give gifts? He doesn’t give them as toys or trophies but as tools for carrying out the work in His vineyard. We in the Diocese of Fort Worth have been blessed throughout these 50 years by Christ’s generosity in granting us the willingness to remain faithful to the light of His truth amid so much darkness in the world and for His generosity we come together to worship and give Him thanks.
Much of the darkness in which His light has shown through our faithfulness is the darkness of incoherence and isolation that were the bitter fruits of the modern world now given way to the stupor of the postmodern world. “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples: But upon you the Lord shines and over you appears his glory” (Isaiah 60:1-2).
On this memorial of Saint Pius X, we are reminded that he served as pope at the start of the 20th century, the bloodiest century in human history and the century most naïvely attached to the unbridled claims of modern and unrealistic concepts. Pope Saint Pius X cared for the people of God, not as a politician or as a diplomat, but as a pastor who sought to restore all things in Christ. He called the Church back into the reality of the mystery of the Eucharist in its real presence of Christ: the Eucharist frequently received with reverence and devotion and offered with simplicity and beauty.
As we come together today, we are confident that we don’t have to sing a new church into being because that work has already been done by Christ. Christ has sought us out to entrust us with the work of His vineyard and we are truly blessed and privileged to have responded to His grace for the flourishing of His Church. The ministry and work in His vineyard are accompanied by the unsurpassable gift of belonging to Him and through Him to His people, in love and communion.
Cuando consideramos la parábola del Evangelio de hoy, podemos pasar por alto fácilmente el hecho de que el personaje que más trabaja en la parábola es el propietario — por implicación, Cristo. En otras palabras, Cristo desea salvarnos más de lo que cualquiera persona quiere salvarse a sí mismo.
When we consider the parable from today’s Gospel, we can easily overlook the fact that the hardest working character in the parable is the landowner — by implication, Christ. In other words, Christ desires to save us more than any of us want to save ourselves. Christ is always at work in our lives to redeem us. The hardest working characters are not those who are first hired and have endured the hot sun, complaining about their pay. They are the loudest of the characters because they have adopted the disposition of someone who is working for God instead of doing God’s work.
This is a distinction that is important for our own self-examination of our vocation in discipleship. When I am “working for God” the initiative is from me in that I have decided what I am going to do for God, and there is an expectation that He will accomplish my plan for His benefit since we’ve implicitly agreed to a contract. The subtle inference is that if God doesn’t carry out His end of the contract to my expectation, I can come to believe that God has cheated me, so I might have to terminate Him and find another god.
When I am doing God’s work, the initiative belongs to God. This is the gift of grace. I am accountable to God on His terms, not my own. God has taken the initiative in entrusting me with His work, not the other way around. He provides the plan and the vision and the necessary tools, some of which I may not have known previously that I received, for the sake of completing His work that includes my own conversion. In so doing His work, my disposition changes to become more like His, more generous and loving.
Esta es una distinción que es importante para nuestro propio examen de nuestra vocación en el discipulado. Cuando estoy trabajando para Dios, la iniciativa es mía, ya que he decidido lo que voy a hacer por Dios y existe la expectativa de que cumplirá mi plan para su beneficio, ya que hemos acordado implícitamente a un contrato. La inferencia sutil es que, si Dios no lleva su parte del contrato, podría tener que rescindirlo y encontrar otro dios.
Cuando estoy haciendo la obra de Dios, la iniciativa le pertenece a Dios. Soy responsable ante Dios en sus términos, no en los míos. Dios ha tomado la iniciativa de confiarme su obra, no al revés. Él proporciona el plan y la visión y las herramientas necesarias, algunas de las cuales no sabía que poseía, para completar Su trabajo que incluye mi propia conversión. Al hacer Su obra, mi disposición cambia para ser más parecida a la Suya — más generosa y amorosa.
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| Photo by Juan Guajardo/NTC |
That which surpasses the payment by the landowner to the workers is the gift of belonging that the landowner bestows upon the workers; they belong to Him and to each other, they belong to the vineyard when previously — before the landowner sought them out — they were purposeless and isolated without belonging.
Christ bestows this gift of belonging, the gift of Communion, upon us through His real presence — Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — in the Eucharist that He shares with us. It is not a cheap belonging that is based upon an exchange of services arrived at on a cost/benefit analysis. The fruit of belonging provided to us by Christ through the gift of the Eucharist is rich in accountability and love. The Eucharist is neither a toy nor a trophy. To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, “If it’s just a symbol, what’s the point of it?”
El fruto de pertenencia que nos dio Cristo a través del don de la Eucaristía es rico en responsabilidad y amor. Hay las gracias de las expectativas que acompañan la pertenencia a la Iglesia, transformada a través de nuestra participación en la Eucaristía.
There are the graces of expectations that accompany our belonging in the Church whereby we are transformed through our participation in the Eucharist. For us to receive the presence of Christ in the Eucharist we should be disposed to receive Him in a state of Grace, totally reliant on His love and aware of our own unworthiness. This accountability is most clearly manifested in what the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to as the Sacraments of Service: Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders.
Christ is espoused through the sacrifice of the Eucharist in Holy Communion with His Bride, the Church for whom He died. Husband and wife live as a man and woman in a two-in-one flesh communion — through their consent expressed in their freely exchanged vows of permanence, fidelity, and openness to God’s gift of children. A man and woman are accountable to these promises of married life in love when they make them in a covenantal way in which Christ is intimately involved with His love and mercy. The darkness of the dominant culture would replace this light of accountability and love with the shadows of “the freedom of expression, privacy, and spirituality” without due regard for human nature. Our married couples shine brightly with this light in their commitment to marriage and dedication to family life.
Christ is the priest and victim of His sacrifice on the cross. This is the same sacrifice that is made present in the sacrifice of the Mass. Christ serves as the Good Shepherd who lays down His life in loving sacrifice for His sheep. In that image of Head and Shepherd, and for the sake of the sacrifice of the Eucharist, a priest is ordained — to give his life in service for the sake of the sheep, especially the lost sheep. The lost sheep are those who are sought after and who enter the vineyard last but with identical and generous gifts of belonging to Christ and to others in the joyful vineyard of His Church. Without this sacrifice made in love, the priest runs the risk of becoming a hired hand or even a wolf, purposeless and predatory.
I would like to make my own the following words addressed in a recent letter to all of us priests by Pope Francis, “Without denying or dismissing the harm caused by some of our brothers, it would be unfair not to express our gratitude to all those priests who faithfully and generously spend their lives in the service of others. They embody a spiritual fatherhood capable of weeping with those who weep. Countless priests make of their lives a work of mercy in areas or situations that are often hostile, isolated, or ignored, even at the risk of their lives. I acknowledge and appreciate your courageous and steadfast example; in these times of turbulence, shame, and pain, you demonstrate that you have joyfully put your lives on the line for the sake of the Gospel.” I know this to be true of you not only as your bishop but as a priest of this diocese who has served with you for over 25 years.
Sin la centralidad de Cristo, que Cristo mismo ofrece a través de la Eucaristía — Cristo que es completamente divino y completamente humano — nuestro enfoque del matrimonio y nuestro enfoque de las órdenes sagradas pueden oscurecerse por el egocentrismo y el profesionalismo sin pertenecer, sin amor, o responsabilidad.
Our life as the Church, the local church of Fort Worth in communion united with every other local church in communion with the Holy See, requires that we begin and end in prayer. We ask Christ together in prayer for a renewal of our contemplation upon His real presence in the Eucharist and the discernment of His will for us and our part in His plan and not the other way around. We need to stay with Him.
Without prayer and receiving the gift of His real presence or by taking Him for granted — we end up grasping for things in selfishness and in the darkness of entitlement, and instead of belonging to Christ and each other as the Church, we are consumed by our own selfishness. Without our prayer and our gratitude for Christ’s gift of His real presence in the Eucharist, we soon lose our recognition of the reality of human beings. People soon become problems for me to eradicate or they become threats to my false god of autonomy. Neighbors become enemies. Incoherence in reason, anger in the heart, and belligerence in speech soon lead to violence in action. The grace of the Eucharist saves us from such evil.
The Eucharist makes us the Church through Christ’s initiative and His generosity and our grateful response to labor in His vineyard. The Eucharist never is grasped at as an entitlement; it is never owned; the Eucharist freely offered must be graciously received. With Christ the Eucharistic victim, we ourselves are blessed, broken, and shared. Such is life in the vineyard of the Lord, and such is our life as the Church. He requires us to pray that He will send more laborers into His vineyard.We have a responsibility to ask God specifically for vocations to the priesthood, religious life, and the diaconate.
La Eucaristía nunca es captada; La Eucaristía es recibida, ofrecida, sacrificada, quebrantada y compartida. Así es la vida en la viña del Señor, y así es la vida como la Iglesia. Él nos exige que recemos para que envíe más trabajadores a Su viña. Según el proyecto del Quinto Encuentro, sus hijos son los sacerdotes hispanos y vocaciones religiosas de nuestra diócesis. Recen por esto conmigo con confianza y fe.
Cómo escribió el Papa Francisco en Evangelii Gaudium: “Así redescubrimos que Cristo nos quiere tomar como instrumentos para llegar cada vez más cerca a Su pueblo amado. Nos toma de en medio del pueblo y nos envía al pueblo, de tal modo que nuestra identidad no se entiende sin esta pertenencia.”
As Pope Francis wrote in Evangelii Gaudium, “We realize once more that Christ wants to make use of us to draw closer to His beloved people. He takes us from the midst of His people, and He sends us to His people; without this sense of belonging we cannot understand our deepest identity” (EG #268).
Christ continues to give us the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of our identity, our dignity, and our destiny throughout our past, present, and future. This gift of the Eucharist — Christ really present in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — makes all the difference for us to truly be His Church and to flourish in His vineyard for our salvation and for His greater honor and glory.
