Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time Reflections

Today's Mass Readings have brought me back from my turpor to want to write.
I can take heart from today's Gospel that as a latecomer to the vineyard today my pesky efforts still count. You know, The last shall be first and that sort of thing....


These Reflections are on the Gospel of the Parable of the Labourers in The Vineyard
My way of measuring time and effort is not God's way of measuring. 
To God, a thousand years are like a day and in the words of the song:  Love really does change everything !!
One person can’t have more eternal life than another: the reward is the same for all.
It is not us who sets the rules or the boundaries in the time and place of God.
God is one and indivisible. He cannot give ten percent of himself to one , and thirty percent to another and eighty percent to a third on the grounds that they have somehow "merited" it. 
God's love is all or nothing.
 
Extracts edited below are from here
"It is not up to us how we will be paid. This is not a parable about our hard work, our efforts, our reward, but it is about the astounding kindness and generosity of God – a God who gives the best thing he has – himself – and the only reward any of us could ever hope or pray for – the gift of eternal life.

God's Grace – is freely given, thoroughly undeserved and outrageously unwarranted is distributed to all of us.

When we end up in God’s presence, we are all going to be very surprised by those who are there – all colours, nations, lifestyles, sexualities,the  rich and poor, the pious and profane. 

Only then will we be able to appreciate the outrageous possibilities that this Gospel parable has to offer the whole world – a world which is saved long before it is condemned by a loving, ever-living God.

It really does not matter where we start from or whatever time we begin in God’s vineyard, we need not fret . All is fair. All is good. All is right in God’s wonderful, all-embracing, all-transforming love. "



Above Labourers in the Vineyard Ian Pollock
from here
 
We need to be happy about that hope and not resentful !!

Ron Rolheiser reflections on the parable of the labourers in the vineyard are from here

And another good reflection here

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