Sunday, February 5, 2012
Septuagesima Sunday
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My dear Faithful,
Today, we start upon the long and
arduous road that leads to Calvary.
The Christmas season is now
over, and we turn our attention from the beginning of Our Lord’s
life to its end.
Although there is no mention
in the Mass today, the readings of the Breviary give us the
story of exactly where this journey to Calvary begins.
The road began of course with
the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of
Eden.
That original sin, which we
all inherit, and which alone is enough to banish us forever into
the outer darkness.
But the love of God for the children
he created provides us with a way out of that otherwise
inevitable doom.
During the Christmas season
which has just ended, we learned how a Virgin conceived and
brought forth a Child, how unto us was born a Saviour who is
Christ the Lord.
A Redeemer who would somehow
re-open those gates of heaven which Adam and Eve had caused to
be slammed shut.
A Redeemer who would pay the
price of the almost infinite number of sins that have been
committed since the world began.
Whose death alone could
balance out the infinite sacrilege of having offended an
infinite God.
Only one who was himself
infinite in his divine nature could possibly pay that price, and
today we begin our steady march towards that redemption, towards
that spilling of our Saviour’s Blood on the hill of Calvary.
And so our vestments change to
purple, the colour of penitence and sorrow.
We will spend the next three
weeks preparing ourselves, making ourselves ready, to share,
with Our Lord, a tiny part of that immense suffering he
undertook on our behalf, with our meager little penances of
Lent.
This pre-Lenten period is one
where we should reflect on the sin of Adam and Eve, the sins of
man which caused God to send the Great Flood and wipe out all of
mankind save the chosen few who Noah took with him on his Ark,
and the covenant which God made with man, that he would send a
Messiah to visit and redeem his people.
And just as those chosen few who were
allowed on to Noah’s Ark were saved, so too, those who have been
called to the life of grace in the true faith, may also be saved
from eternal damnation.
All of you here in this room
today have been called.
You have all been baptized
into the true Catholic Faith, you have the opportunity to
confess your sins, to receive Holy Communion.
You are called, yes.
However, many are called, but
few are chosen.
You are redeemed, yes, but are
you saved?
The Protestants love to ask
that question:
“Are you saved?”
Because they fail to recognize
the difference between being saved and being redeemed.
We are all redeemed, it is
true.
But we are most decidedly NOT
all saved.
Only those who freely choose
to cooperate with God’s holy will and obey his commandments,
loving God and their neighbor, will end up being saved.
Only those who die in the
state of grace will be saved.
You are all called to that
end.
How many of you here today
will make it?
Today’s Gospel is all about being
called.
The householder needs
labourers to work in his vineyard, and so he goes out early in
the morning and calls men to work.
He wants more, and goes out
again at the third hour of the day, then again at the sixth and
the ninth hours of the day, each time calling men to work in his
vineyard.
Who is this householder, and
what is he doing here?
It is of course a parable, a
story to make us realize a great truth.
Our Lord tells us this story
to remind us that we are all called to work in God’s vineyard,
to labour all our life long.
He calls us many times, but do
we listen?
Are we perhaps like those who
stand idly in the marketplace until the eleventh hour, when the
householder finally calls them in exasperation:
“Why stand ye here all the day
idle?”
This reproach may be addressed to
very many.
To those who have never given
a thought to what God wants of them in this life.
You are all here for a
purpose.
Have you thought carefully
what God wants you to do with this precious gift of life which
you have been given?
The reproach may be addressed
also to those who do no work at all for God.
Or to those who do it
slothfully, or who give in to their many distractions and forget
the one thing that is truly necessary.
God has called you ALL to work.
None may be idle, in whatever
position they may be.
He has called us many times
during our life.
We don’t know how long our
life may be.
Perhaps God has already called
us at our “eleventh hour”…
But be certain of this.
He HAS called us already.
Does anyone dare say like the
men in the parable:
“No man hath hired us.”?
There are many kinds of work to be
done, some higher, and some lower in the sight of men; but all
necessary, all for the same Master, all equally honourable, and
all receiving the same reward.
Each one of you has the duties
of his state of life; duties to his own family, to those around
him, which together make up the corner of the vineyard assigned
to him.
Each has the field of his own
heart, which he must keep clean and fertile, and which he only
can cultivate.
And so on this Septuagesima Sunday,
let us all resolve to answer the call of our Master.
Let us set ourselves to the
task which God has given us; working with all the talents he has
given to each of us, not just some of them; working according to
our Lord’s instructions, not our own way, or according to our
own caprice.
And above all, let us not
waste any more time standing idle “for the day is far spent”,
and perhaps, who knows, the end is in sight.
You have been called many
times, but so were the Jews, the chosen people of God, and yet
when Christ came to them, his own received him not.
In the words of St. Peter,
“make your calling and election sure”, prepare well for the
coming season of Lent, and labour hard, and your labour for him
shall not be in vain. |
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen