27th Sunday in Ordinary time- Cycle A

Readings:

Is 5:1-7           Ph 4: 6-9          Mt 21:33-43

The beautiful readings in today's liturgy reminded me of a story I've heard in the past.  The story tells of a lady sitting in a hospital waiting room when she noticed a man staring at her. She became upset and angrily glared back at the man, but he didn't turn away.  Finally, she walked up to him said, "I don't appreciate you staring at me."  He replied, "I wasn't staring at you. I am blind."

St. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, reminded them to dismiss anxiety from their lives.  "Have no anxiety at all", he said. In the case of the lady in our story, she was upset because of a man staring at him only to find herself in an embarrassing situation. There could already be something running and formed in the mind of the lady even if she wasn't sure of what's really happening in her outside environment. In one way or another, many of us have experienced what the lady experienced.  Psychologists call it as an anxiety disorder.  Anxiety is different from fear. Fear is valid because it is a result of something that happened. Anxiety, according to definition, is a painful uneasiness of mind over anticipated ill.    While fear has a foundation, anxiety lives in mind and may or may not happen.  Many of these anxieties do not really materialize in to real fears but their result in the life of a person can wreck havoc.  Anxiety can disable the person's capacity to think straight and make wrong choices.

Confronted by so many problems and bad experiences in life, we also start feeling anxious of so many things in life without noticing that we have already acquired a negative stance in life. We start becoming suspicious of people around us. We become easily distracted. We start losing peace of mind. St. Paul reminds us today to return to the Prince of Peace by prayer and petition. Let our anxieties reach the ears of God and we shall experience again the peace that is beyond all understanding. To pray to God is to make him take charge of our lives once again.  This is what we forget when we start to be anxious of our lives, of our future.

This is what the tenants in the parable had forgotten.  The vineyard is only leased to them.  There is a real owner. There is an owner who invested and poured his resources so that in the future he may collect the produce of the land.  The tenants failed to see their reality because greed and pride had already filled their minds. Their next actions had led them to greater sins by killing the servants of the master and, ultimately, killing his son.  In the end, their lives had to pay for their actions.

Many times we are our own tormentors. Our worries drive us to do crazy things. In today's mass, let us pray to God that we may experience peace of mind. After praying the Lord's Prayer, let us offer the sign of peace with genuine affection to our seatmates in the church.