Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another[1]. When Saint Paul wrote that line to those early Christians living in Rome, he obviously wasn’t familiar with the modern way of life, what with mortgages, car notes, credit card bills, tuition payments and all kind of expenses. Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another? If only it was that easy, I want to say! But what gives meaning to our lives, what gives meaning to the life of the human family, is not the power, prestige, status or wealth that we accumulate in our lives, but the quality of the relationships we have with other human beings. When each of us and all of us look at each person we encounter with the belief that human life is sacred – every human life!- and when we respect the God-given dignity of each human person, then they will truly have something to talk about when our time is up. “…for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Countless obstacles throw themselves up in the path of our striving to love. It may be our own woundedness, our own personal pain that holds us back and keeps us from opening our hearts to others. It may be our busyness and all the tasks of daily life that blind us to the opportunities and the invitations to love. It could be the biases we pick up from family members and other influential people in our lives that lead us to narrow mindedness and prejudice that lead us to writing some people off as less human, less important, or less worthy of our attention, our respect, our compassion, our love. There are people who don’t look like I do, don’t dress like I do, don’t talk like I do; there are people who have harmed others, there are people who have broken the law. And at times, I am inclined to discount them, to ignore them, to look down my nose at them. Even worse, when I have the power to do so, I sometimes want to get them out of my sight, get them out of my environment, get them as far away as possible from me, and exclude them from anything that qualifies them as human. Well, St. Paul is challenging us today to open our hearts and arms as wide as Christ on the cross. Big challenge! In another place, the apostle points out that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice of love – dying on the Cross – not for the worthy, not for the good, but for sinners, for you and me and all the rest of the world, every single human being. It was the innocent one that willingly opened his arms on the Cross in love for all of sinful, broken, needy humanity. It is he who invites to open our arms just as wide our sisters and brother in the human family. So, let us do some examination of conscience this Sunday morning, and let us ask the Spirit of God for his help and fire into our souls to accept this challenge, and to improve this specific aspect in our spiritual life • AE

 

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Fr. Agustin’s Schedule for September 5-6, 2020.

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Saturday, September 5, 2020 

4.00 p.m. Sacrament of Confession

5.30 p.m. English Mass

@ St. Peter Prince of the Apostles Catholic Church.

 

Sunday September 6, 2020.

 

10.30 a.m. English Mass

@ Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church

(Outdoors mass)

 

12.00 p.m. English Mass

@ Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church

(Main church)

 

4. 00 p.m. Sacrament of Confession

5.00 p.m. English Mass

@ Trinity University 

(Margarite B. Parker Chapel)

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Hoy nadie soporta que le corijan o aconsejen sobre algo. Como consecuencia, quienes, por su responsabilidad, están llamados a corregir huyen rápidamente con un “cada quién es libre de hacer lo que quiera”. Efectivamente, huimos de la corrección fraterna, paradójicamente rechazamos esta corrección en una época en la que exigimos correcciones en todo: en el televisor, que no nos da una imagen suficientemente nítida, en la hechura del traje que nos acabamos de comprar, en la conexión a Internet. En todo. Se diría que en la medida en que hemos conseguido precisiones tecnológicas increíbles a base de corregir, en esa misma medida hemos llegado a una irresponsable dejación de las conductas humanas…justo por no corregir. El evangelio de hoy es muy claro: “Si tu hermano peca, repréndele a solas...”. Se trata de una corrección preocupada, insistente, progresiva: “a solas..., ante dos..., ante la comunidad”. Y es que la mala conducta no puede dejar nunca indiferente al cristiano. El pecado no sólo repercute en quien lo comete, sino en la comunidad a la que pertenece. Cuando un miembro de nuestro cuerpo está herido, todo nuestro cuerpo siente malestar y dolor. Hablamos mucho de solidaridad, usamos esta palabra cuando los derechos humanos de alguien han sido quebrantados, pero solidaridad es también y sobre todo velar para que “los árboles tiernos –y todos lo somos-crezcan y mueran de pie”[2]. El jardinero corrige las guías torcidas de sus arbustos. Y los padres, los educadores, los sacerdotes, los cristianos en general, somos jardineros de la viña del Señor. Lo que pasa es que, para corregir, hacen falta dos cosas al menos. Una, mucha humildad. El que corrige no es infalible, sino un servidor dispuesto, a su vez, a ser corregido. Corregir, por lo tanto, no es anatematizar, humillar, apabullar, sino valorar» al corregido. Y la otra: el punto de partida de la corrección es el amor sincero. No perdamos esto de vista. El padre que corrige porque “en esta casa mando yo”; el profesor que corrige “por razones de orden y disciplina”; el formador que corrige por “mantener un principio de autoridad”, poco ayudan. Siempre será mejor tener delante aquello tan entrañable que escribía Gabriela Mistral «Aligérame, Señor, la mano en el castigo, y suavízamela en la caricia. Y que reprenda con amor para saber que he corregido amando»[3] • AE

 

 

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[1] Rom 13:8.

[2] Los árboles mueren de pie es una obra teatral del dramaturgo español Alejandro Casona publicada en 1949, que pertenece a la literatura contemporánea española.

[3] La oración de la maestra. El texto completo pueede leerse aqui: http://www.gabrielamistral.uchile.cl/prosa/oracionmaestra.html