XXV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
JUSTICE AND CHARITY
By our Pastor, Fr. Carmelo Jimenez
Part of this Sunday’s Gospel makes us reflect on many aspects of life: justice, the call to conversion of each Christian and charity.
We hear in today’s Gospel: “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… 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”. (Mat. 20: 9 -14). The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in 2004, wrote and presented a Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, to Pope John Paul II for his approval, and paragraph 279, says: “In the past, the origin of the conflict between capital and labor was found above all ‘in the fact that the workers put their powers at the disposal of the entrepreneurs, and these, following the principle of maximum profit, tried to establish the lowest possible wages for the work done by the employees’.” The council saw it as a conflict that has changed form but continues today, and with the advent of new technologies came high unemployment. The wage-labor relationship must be based on justice, and if the employers are believers in God, there must be charity, which would help to the workers and grateful workers would yield more in their work.
In the first reading the prophet Isaiah, says: “Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving” (Is.55: 6-7). The prophets regularly sought the conversion of the sinner. Among those characterized as public sinners were tax collectors, big merchants, and landowners. Many prophets, including Isaiah denounced the injustices of those sinners but sought their conversion. Today, we could get escape conversion saying, “I’m not a public sinner”, “I do not kill, I do not steal, I do not disappoint anyone,” so I do not need conversion! However, every Christian needs to be in the process of conversion and be better every day. Only someone who has died is not able to change, so long as we have life, we have the opportunity to be better. While we live we can change more and more.
The third point: charity. The charity lived by Jesus Christ is the most perfect. With the laborer from dawn the owner was fair, but with the laborer who came late, the owner was charitable. So, justice and charity always go hand in hand. At the end of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, paragraph 583, says: “Only love can completely transform the human person. Such a transformation does not mean eliminating the earthly dimension in a disembodied spirituality. Those who think they can live the supernatural virtue of love without taking into account its corresponding natural foundations, which include duties of justice, deceive themselves. Charity is the greatest social commandment. It respects others and their rights. It requires the practice of justice and it alone makes us capable of it. Charity inspires a life of self-giving.” No matter what time of your life God has called you, hear His voice and follow him, dare to work in his vineyard. God will not only be fair to you, but will fill you with his charity.
Let us join St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who paraphrased her teacher St. John of the Cross, in offering her life to God, by saying: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself”. (583 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church).