20th Week, Wednesday, August 23
Judges 9:6-15 / Matthew 20:1-16The people elect a new leader; The worst Person won by default.Louis Rigdon was an attorney for the Department of Justice. All his life he made a heroic effort to cast his ballot on Election Day.
The polling place in his precinct was located in a church basement. This made voting terribly hard for him, because he was confined to a wheelchair. Yet each Election Day, Rigdon paid a cabbie extra money to take him to the church, push him to the stairs, and then call the voting manager. The voting manager brought him the ballot, and Rigdon filled it out and returned it. It was a difficult operation for Rigdon, but he thought voting for the right leaders was that important.
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How conscientious are we in exercising our voting responsibilities? "The punishment of the wise who refuse to take part in government is to live under the rule of the foolish." Plato
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The first reading gives us a first attempt to establish a kingdom to give more stability to Israel than the system of the Judges, but the would-be king is rejected with an allegory that ridicules him.
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Gideon called by God to save, not to rule. He refused to become king when people invited him after the defeat of the Midianites. God is king, his conviction. One of his seventy-two sons, Abimelech, thought differently. He begged his family to ask this question to every citizen of Shechem: “Which is better for you, to be ruled by seventy or to he ruled by one? Remember too that I am your flesh and blood" (verse 2). He had seventy of his brothers killed. Only the youngest, Jotham, escaped. He stood on Mount Gerizim, their holy place, and gave to the people of Shechem this parable: The trees chose a king: Some proposed the olive tree, an oily king. The olive tree refused priests and kings are anointed with my oil and "l should be standing above swaying above the trees" with pomp and pageantry. The fig tree refused because it would lose its usefulness. Ever since Adam, fig leaves are in demand. In English, when an officer comes in his parade uniform, we call it "full fig". The fig is a sweet fruit. The vine too refused. It gives cheer to gods and men. Only the bramble accepted to give shade and shelter. He meant his brother - and fled. A strong condemnation of monarchy and dictatorship.
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This parable provokes to disagree and criticize. Think of a landowner who does not know how many labourers he needs for the harvest and has to go five times to the big city gate to hire men. He makes the first wait for their pay and pays the same to those who worked one hour and to those who worked twelve hours. No modern employer could allow himself such a gross social injustice. Jesus wanted to provoke, so that we may think. First: God is free to choose whom and when he wants. We cannot understand God with our human way of thinking. He is greater and different. "Have I no right to do what I like with my own?" (verse 15), He is the potter, we are the clay. With our courageous, democratic concepts, we cannot understand the infinite. But God is gracious. He gives generously (verse 16). Man, pettily calculates and compares, God does not.
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The parable of the laborers in the vineyard tells us, contrary to what we often hear, that God is not a bookkeeper. Of course, he loves those who lead exemplary Christian lives. But in his heart, there is also room for the stragglers and latecomers as well as for the pioneers. God loves us and is generous to us, not because we are good but because he is good.
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Prayer
God, you are high above us and get nearer to us than we are to ourselves; you hate evil and yet you give a chance to people who fail; you know us as we are and still you love us. Teach us your surprising ways, that your thoughts may become ours and that we may generously share with those around us all the good gifts and the life you have given us in the generosity of your heart, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Saint Rose of Lima
Feast day August 23
Gaspar de Flores and his wife, Maria de Olivia, were proud
of their daughter. She was born April 20, 1586, and was baptized Isabel de
Flores. One day, a maid exclaimed that she looked just like a rose. Isabel’s
mother declared that this child would be called “Rose” from then on. Isabel took
Rose as her Confirmation name.
Rose did not attend school. She stayed at home and worked in
the garden. She also learned to embroider on silk and to create designs,
usually of flowers. Rose took Saint Catherine of Siena as a model. Even as a
child, she wanted to live only for Jesus. She looked for difficult things to do
to show her love for him. She also built a prayer hut for herself in the
backyard. Then her parents experienced financial difficulties. Rose planned to
enter a convent. Her parents wanted her to marry so that they could get
financial help from her husband. Finally, Rose found an answer to this problem.
To help her parents, she stayed home and sold her needlework and the flowers
she raised, but she joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic as well. She began
to live in her hut. In her parents’ home, she set up one room as a free medical
clinic for children who were poor and people who were elderly. This became the
beginning of social service in Peru.
In the last years of her life, Rose became very ill, and she
died on August 24, 1617. By then, she was widely known and loved by both rich
and poor people.
