{"id":1653,"date":"2016-08-28T18:50:46","date_gmt":"2016-08-28T16:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/?p=1653"},"modified":"2016-08-28T18:50:46","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T16:50:46","slug":"22nd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-cycle-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2016\/08\/28\/22nd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-cycle-c\/","title":{"rendered":"22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most obvious question that crosses anyone\u2019s mind when hearing this Gospel, a parable about Heaven, is, \u201cwhat spot am I going to get?\u201d That question shows flawed logic. Our Lord teaches us today that the invitees don\u2019t decide their own spot in his banquet. We don\u2019t decide any spots in our life on our own.\u00a0The quest for honorable positions, according to worldly logic\u2014power, wealth, etc., is almost a guarantee of failure, because so often we seek the spot that we don\u2019t deserve. We see this in so many areas of our life: school, sports, work, and family. Despite this, we keep seeking them and then suffer the shame of returning to a spot that may even be less\u00a0to the one we would have had if we’d been humble as the First Reading today encourages us to do.<\/p>\n

Our Lord puts us on guard against this tendency today. If we seek the most humble spot we will see that he will take us to a place beyond our expectations.\u00a0We live this in every celebration of the Eucharist, which reminds us of the only place that matters: our place in Heaven at the end of our life. Today\u2019s Second Reading, addressed to Christians who were tired and discouraged, reminds us that the distance between God and us has been eliminated. The Lord no longer hides in fire and smoke; every Sunday we are at table with him, and he shows us our place in his heart through the gift of his life.<\/p>\n

A place in the Lord\u2019s heart in the most honorable place we have, which is why Our Lord invites us to have a place in our heart not just for those we know and love, but for everyone. We\u2019ve all been invited to the Heavenly banquet without earning it or deserving it. We\u2019re poor (lacking the only currency of worth\u2014love for our neighbor), crippled and lame (by not living our Christian life often as we should), and blind (not seeing our own flaws and limitations). Despite all this misery, the Lord invites us and gives us a place of honor.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s thank Our Lord today for having saved us a place in his Heavenly banquet through his blood on the Cross. Let\u2019s assure him that he\u2019ll always be in first place in our hearts, and strive to give this love to others.<\/p>\n

Readings:\u00a0Sirach 3:17\u201318, 20, 28\u201329; Psalm 68:4\u20137, 10\u201311;\u00a0Hebrews 12:18\u201319, 22\u201324a;\u00a0Luke 14:1, 7\u201314.<\/em> See also 30th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most obvious question that crosses anyone\u2019s mind when hearing this Gospel, a parable about Heaven, is, \u201cwhat spot am I going to get?\u201d That question shows flawed logic. Our Lord teaches us today that the invitees don\u2019t decide their own spot in his banquet. We don\u2019t decide any spots in our life on our … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[121,45,15,83],"class_list":["post-1653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cycle-c","tag-ordinary-time","tag-sunday","tag-twenty-second-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-qF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1653"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1655,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions\/1655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}