TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR II: WEDNESDAY
Ezekiel 34:11
“I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I Myself will look for My sheep and take care of them.” (So here from the hands, authorities and powers God gave to the religious rulers and authorities of Prophet Ezekiel’s time, God was determined to take the flock back from their hands, as they were irresponsible and through the authority and power God gave to them, they become proud, arrogant and refused to serve the Lord in the flock that God gave to them. They offered up sacrifice of the best animals (fattest sheep), but they erred in their basic duties to protect, feed and guide the sheep. So, since the First Pentecost, we could see that God took back the flock from the hands of the Jewish authorities and He Himself through Jesus Christ, the Son of Man sends down the Holy Spirit to take possession of the flock and the sheep. He called, anointed and set apart Peter and the Apostles to become His handmaids whereby it is not the Apostles or Peter and his successors who had power over the flock of sheep which are directly in the Hands of God. So, the powers and authorities given to the Apostles and Peter together with all his successors are not their own powers and authorities as God rules through His servants and handmaids who are given the power and gift of the Holy Spirit and those whom He had chosen are to be directly responsible to God as the Holy Spirit will directs each shepherd to do what God through Christ in the Holy Spirit wants them to do.)
Psalm 22
This is one of the most beautiful psalms, and from these Words of Truth, from the Psalmist, we could see the Role of God the Father who is the Good Shepherd and since the First Pentecost, He had Anointed the Son of Man to take His Role as the Good Shepherd and Jesus Christ is fully responsible to His Father to take care of the flock of sheep, and these are saints-to-be on earth, ready to ascend to become saints in Heaven after we died. So, this Psalmist was very accurate and précised in what he had written.
‘I have everything I need’ (this may sound as though God will gives us abundant material blessings of earthly wealth, glories and acclaims, but in reality, God gives us all we need physically to survive and the accesses are to be shared with others, as we become the handmaids, servants and instruments of God’s Providence to others. God could easily deal with human beings personally without our participations, but He rather wants God’s Spirit to forms our natures into His Nature, so we who are children of God, filled with the Holy Spirit are Christ in this world and we are to have God’s natures transforming, restoring and moving our lives in order that our words, actions, attitudes and outlooks in lives are the same as those in Jesus Christ. So too God does not need us to pray and tell God about the needs of our fellow human beings, who are our brothers and sisters, as He can easily deal with them Personally without our participations, but God rather, we share in His works as Father and Shepherd, as through this way, we are being transformed into the Likeness and Image of God and we could see that God could do things without Christ, as He could come Personally to all human beings as these are His human creatures and He could willed them to listen, obey and do likewise as He wants them to do, but He rather choose and anoints Jesus Christ to take His Place in the Kingdom of God, on earth and Heaven.
Therefore, all we need are about our basic survival, focusing on the souls in relationships with God through Christ as our priorities. Because, all physical things, be these bodies, wealth that we garnered in this world, the glories, honors and acclaims that we receive from our fellow human beings; these are all temporary. Indeed, these should be the pedestal to raise our souls high into the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of these as objects to sink us as though millstones are tied on our necks, so we would dropped to the deepest bottom of the sea and these are analogies of when we are fattened like the heavy millstones, and these are concretely fastened to our bodies as we are attached to these glories, honors, wealth and acclaims; these will sink us into the bottomless pit of hell, so the heavier these stones are, the deeper we will sink with these stones, so we all need to be vigilant and be watchful, least these millstones are tied to our bodies, but we are not aware of these realities.)
Matthew 20:1-16
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like this. Once there was a Man who went out early in the morning to hire some men to work in His Vineyard. He agreed to pay them the regular wage, a silver coin a day, and sent them to work in His Vineyard.” (So, here we may be stirred by the Holy Spirit to respond to our callings, to be priests, religious or consecrated lay people; these we all need to know that unless we are working for God through working with our physical bodies, stirred and empowered by the Holy Spirit from within the cores of our beings; we cannot expect God to pay us the Regular Wage of a silver coin. This Wage is necessary for every human being to be saved through receiving Eternal Life through Christ from God the Father. All these passions, fervent zeal and activities to respond and labors in the Vineyard of the Lord or the Kingdom of God on earth, are God’s Own doing to draw us into His Kingdom. He is our Father, Lord and God, and He wants all human beings created in His Image and Likeness to be with Him in Heaven, so He is generous to give each of us this Single Day Wage which is our Life-time commitments to God to serve Him in His Kingdom on earth, whereby all laborers in the Vineyard of the Lord must be filled with the Holy Spirit of Christ within our bodies, so God is not reaping what He does not sow or labor, because the Holy Spirit, is God in the Blessed Trinity coming and making His homes in each human body, so God works within our bodies, inviting us to co-operate with Him, so to receive the Single Day Wage which is Eternal Life in union with God.
Therefore in all our mundane activities, there needed the Holy Spirit which empowers and inspired us in every types of physical and worldly jobs that we are given, so as we are empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit in our mundane activities, we will acknowledge that although employers, leaders and customers are our providential of our physical wages and bread, but above all these hands that give to us, these are God’s Hands through human hands giving us the money, wages and incomes for our works.
But for priests and those in religious orders; the Hands of God are visibly seen as the Spirit of Christ empowers and inspires us from within and we allowed our bodies to be used by God as His servants, instruments and handmaids; so, God acts through human bodies which are supposed to be temples of the Holy Spirit in communion with the Temple of Christ’s Body.
Lay people consecrated by the Holy Spirit when they are serving God in Spiritual acts of mercies expressing these into corporal works of mercies; these blessed saints-to-be will experience the Joy and Happiness of serving the Lord, because Christ resides within their hearts, souls and human spirits. The successes of mission works are not to be measured by human standards of human success, because all servants of the Lord are mere servants in the Body of the Servant of the Lord, in Jesus Christ, so all mission works are satisfactory, complete and wholesome, if we offer ourselves in humble services to God, as we offered to be there for God when He needs hands, we are His hands, if He needs prophets, we are there to speak and act for Him as His Spirit takes possession of our bodies, souls and human spirits. God alone is the only Rightful Owner of our bodies, souls and human spirits, so if He chooses to take possession of us, we are His saints-to-be on earth, ready to ascend to Heaven when we died.)
… “Listen, friend,” the Owner answered one of them, “I have not cheated you. After all, you agreed to do a day’s work for One Silver Coin.” (So, between those who worked full day and those barely working for one hour; these all receive a Day’s Wage and here we need to know that God is determined to save all human beings and He wanted us to be saved, although we are so unlike Jesus Christ who labored on earth for this One Day Wage of which God called and Anointed Him to be the Messiah and Savior of the human race. The One Day Wage for Jesus Christ is to complete the Mission of God His Father and once He had offered up His Body as the Lamb of God, all human beings are ritualistically dead in our sins in His Death Body. So, it was through His Death and the Mystery of the Paschal Passion that we personally savor the fruits of the Death of Christ, when we acknowledged that it is my and our sins that He died and as He was hung on the Cross, we identified our sins in His Body. When He was mocked and treated with contempt, we identified the torturers as one of us, because we too join in the scuffles, treating Jesus with contempt, mocking, slapping Him, pushing and rejecting Him, disfiguring Him to the extent of Jesus no longer looked human.
In order for this Single Wage to be given to all human beings, Jesus Christ has to open the threshold of this Single Wage for human beings; this is the Role of the Son of Man and the Price He paid in order that the Father gives all those who responded to His call, a Single Day Wage is through total submission and obedience to the Father’s will and plan for the human race. This we all need to share in the Mystery of the Yoke of Christ which Jesus invited us to “Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I Am gentle and humble in hearts, and you will find rest for your souls,” in Matthew 11:29. Therefore, in all our suffering, pain, humiliations and being rejected and treated with contempt; these we need to know, that we are sharing in the Yoke of Christ. The Fruit of this Yoke is what we saw and reap in the Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was through His Death, in His Blood that the ‘veil of the Temple of Jerusalem’ in the Holy of Holies, was split open and so from that Day forth, Heaven’s Door is opened for all human beings to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
All these are within the duties, roles and responsibilities of the One Day Wage for all human beings. Indeed, all of us cannot tried to outsmart God and hope to receive One Day Wage for working barely an hour of works, because we may never have this one hour left before we died, so as soon as we know that we all need to labor for this Single Day Wage in order to enter the Kingdom of God, we ought to instantly rush in when God through Christ comes to hire human beings to work in His Vineyard.)
Amen.
16th August 2022.
Lily Wee.