Monday, June 04, 2007

Monday the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes,
and the elders in parables.
“A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.
At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants

to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.
But they seized him, beat him,
and sent him away empty-handed.
Again he sent them another servant.
And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
He sent yet another whom they killed.
So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed.
He had one other to send, a beloved son.
He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
So they seized him and killed him,
and threw him out of the vineyard.
What then will the owner of the vineyard do?
He will come, put the tenants to death,
and give the vineyard to others.
Have you not read this Scripture passage:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?”

They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd,
for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them.
So they left him and went away.

Mark 12:1-12

Prayer

Dear Father how often have we done something similar with what was entrusted to us by you. You have given us many things throughout our lives to care for, and what do we do best is kill what was sent to us. It's like our faith that was entrusted to us, we nurture it and make it our own. But when you send us your messengers we kill them off one by one, so we will not be reminded of what is yours. We do this with our Priests, not in killing them but killing the message they are sent to give us, because we don't want to be reminded that we are to live a Holy life. We are entrusted with a vineyard in our lives, but when the owner calls upon us to see how it fares how will we respond? Will we kill off Jesus too after we have built up his kingdom. May we in our life keep preparing what was entrusted to us and build it up in gratitude for the blessing God has bestowed on us. After all Jesus is the cornerstone of the vineyards of our lives. Amen

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