Septuagesima Sunday 2022 (EF) - Run as to win

Septuagesima Sunday marks the beginning of the period of pre-Lenten preparation on the traditional calendar that tells us that Ash Wednesday is only 17 days away. 

The orations and scripture readings offer direction in our preparations. The Collect of today’s Mass gives us a very important first step: “Graciously hear, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the prayers of Thy people, that we, who are justly afflicted for our sins, may for the glory of Thy Name be mercifully delivered.” 

The first step toward Lenten conversion, or any conversion for that matter, always consists in humbly recognizing that we are sinners in need conversion. The lukewarm must recognize the need to grow in fervor, the fervent must recognize the need to reach for perfection; the perfection must recognize the need to strive to attain heroic virtue. 

In the Epistle, St. Paul, gives us another important principle. He urges us to seek conversion with the effort of the most disciplined athlete: “run as to win”. Whatever conversion we seek during this upcoming Lent, we are going to need discipline. It’s not going to be an easy Lent, for those seeking to get the most out of Lent, it never is. St. Paul had already heard news of some backsliders in Corinth, those who had reverted to the sins of their former way of life. And so Paul is urging those who remain to get ready for the long haul—the long race. To train and develop the virtues that will sustain them in the Christian life.

St. Paul was also encouraging the Corinthian Christian to aim for greatness. To borrow another sports analogy: to not be benchwarmers but Hall of Famers, not to settle for mediocrity, but to aim for real moral and spiritual greatness. So aim for spiritual greatness this Lent.

But then, In the Septuagesima Gospel, the Lord, seems to say the opposite of St. Paul. Rather than striving to be first, he says, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” He seems to be suggesting that no matter how hard we work for his kingdom under the brutal sun in his vineyards, we’ll get no advantage at all over those who, like the Good Thief, steal the prize at the end.

But the Lord is not contradicting his apostle at all…or should we say, the Apostle is not contradicting His Lord. Rather, the Gospel IS a summons to strive with all of our might with the time that we’ve been given. Some are hired by the Lord to work in his vineyard in the morning of life; Catholics from infancy must run as to win. Some hear the Lord calling them in their 20s or 30s, and must also run as to win. Some hear the Lord calling them, as the sun of their earthly life is setting, and must run as to win. 

Wherever we are in life, Septuagesima Sunday is a summons to prepare well for the upcoming Lenten season. Over the next 17 days, we do well to identify those parts of the vineyards of our lives were some wild vines have sprouted and need to be trimmed back. Now is the time to begin to come up with a Lenten program of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. What will my Lenten prayer consist of? What will is the Holy Spirit calling me to fast from? Where can I give of my time, talent, and treasure in efforts to alleviate the suffering of others? What are the virtues that need to be trained? And what will the regiment consist of? What do I need to be delivered of? For the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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 A reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.

Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all of them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert.

The continuation of the Gospel according to St. Matthew

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples this parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So they went off. [And] he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, he found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ He said to one of them in reply, “My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? [Or] am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

27th Sunday of OT 2017 - The Art of Christianity

Yesterday, I had a funeral for a long time parishioner, Lenny Giuliani. Lenny was a winemaker.  Making wine wasn’t his profession, but it wasn’t simply a hobby either. His family called him the “Einstein of Wines” because he was extremely scientific in perfecting his wines. His daughters brought me a few bottles of their father’s wine and suggested that I try them before the funeral. Their father loved constructive criticism, and they said they’d love to hear my honest opinion.

And so I opened his bottle of red, a blend of several different grapes noted on the label, and I’m no connoisseur, but I could tell that I was drinking something special, the culmination of a life’s work, a work of art. It made me think of Pope St. John Paul II. You might be a Catholic nerd if a glass of wine makes you think of a Pope! For, back in 1999, Pope St. John Paul wrote a letter to artists, to all who passionately dedicate themselves to beauty and creativity. The Pope reflected upon how the creative work of artists, often comes painstakingly, but their beauty is a gift to the world. Maybe it’s because I’m half Italian, but I believe good food and good wine are works of art. And Lenny’s wine was certainly artfully made. He developed these wines, painstakingly, and shared the fruits of his labors with the family and friends, and for that, the world was blessed.

I thought I’d share that with you not simply because wine, vineyards, grapes, and winepresses, flow throughout our readings this weekend, but I think Lenny’s dedication to his art also speaks to the lessons of these readings.

For our readings focus on how we use our time, how we spend our life. Self-absorption or self-donation.

In today’s First Reading Isaiah explains how the Lord had prepared Israel like a fine vineyard. God had given Israel the Law, the Torah, he had taken them out of the slavery of Egypt, and sent them prophets to help them be his holy people. And yet, what did they do with that freedom, what did they do to the prophets?

Rather than yielding the lush, juicy grapes of faithfulness, justice and peace, Israel had produced the wild sour grapes of infidelity, false worship, ignorance of the scriptures, injustice toward the poor.
Isaiah’s prophetic warning urges us to examine the vineyard of our own souls. When we examine our life, do we find the good fruit of peace, justice, faithfulness, and joy or do we find the sour fruit of turbulence, selfishness, ignorance, and crankiness? Are you yielding lush spiritual fruit or sour worldly fruit?

The crankiness, bitterness, selfishness, are typically signs of self-absorption rather than self-donation. They are signs of the need to hand our souls over to God in a fuller way, by devoting more time to prayer, fasting, spiritual reading, meditation on the scriptures, and engaging in the works of mercy. They are signs of our need to turn away from the things that do not give us life: the works of selfishness and slothfulness.

The Gospel Parable of the Tenants also highlights the twisted logic of sin by which we reject God’s plan for his vineyard, God’s plan for our souls.

In the parable, who is the vineyard owner, who is his servant, who is his son, who are the tenants? Well, of course the vineyard owner is God, who has set us upon the earth to love and serve him. The vineyard owner’s servants are the prophets God has sent to call us to be faithful to God. The vineyard owner’s son, killed by the wicked tenants, is Jesus, who is rejected by sinful man, and dies on the cross.

Sadly, we are the wicked tenants in that story. The one’s who do the rejecting. We are placed in the vineyard of the Lord, and instead of using our time to serve the Lord alone, we hijack the vineyard, and use it to pursue our own selfish ends.

But the stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. God is greater than our sins. He has given us another chance through Jesus Christ. The sinful tenant can repent and enter into a restored relationship with God, and bear the fruit we were supposed to bear from the beginning.

So the parable is ultimately one of Good News, it is an invitation to repent and believe in and follow the Son who is greater than our sins.

Living in a fallen world, we often get used to sin. I know, I was shocked by the mass shooting this week in Las Vegas. I was shocked, but sadly, not surprised. Not surprised because as a nation, we seem to be falling farther and farther from God. And the farther and farther we fall, the more common these tragedies become.

The lesson from Scripture is clear, Isaiah warns Israel because it had become infested with sin and was bearing rotten, sour fruit. Our nation, any nation, will also bear similar rotten, ghastly horrors, as long as faithlessness, godlessness, perversion, and disrespect for human life persist.

Our duty and our salvation as Catholic Christians is to continue to gather as God’s people as we are doing now, at the altar, at the foot of the cross, to plead God’s mercy for our national and personal sinfulness, and to receive the strength we need to spread the Gospel, to convert hearts, to purify perversions, and to enlighten darkened minds and hearts.

Catholic Christianity is the remedy because it is the way of Jesus Christ, the way of self-donation in fidelity to the will of the Father.

“Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me,” Paul tells the Philippians. “Then the God of peace will be with you.” St. Paul of course was pointing to his own tireless labors in the vineyard of the Lord for the spread of the Gospel. The saints are always our teachers, they show us how ordinary people can become extraordinary blessings for the world. In just a few weeks, we'll be celebrating the great Solemnity of All Saints. I encourage you to choose a saint and learn everything you can about them, that they can inspire you in the Christian life. The saints are the true geniuses, the true artists of history.

Ordinary things, small acts of love, truly can transform the world. So become artists, in the words of Pope St. John Paul, “become passionately dedicated to the search for new “epiphanies” of beauty” and make your art a gift to the world. Your art might be music, or winemaking, or teaching or healing or writing or works of mercy. Become artists of prayer, hospitality, scripture. Become artists of self-donation, become artists of Catholicism, lights in the darkness, and make the world beautiful for the glory of God and salvation of souls.