TWENTY FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
The gospel reading for this 25th Sunday in ordinary time is about a master who went out to the market place, at different hours of the day, to hire laborers for his vineyard. What struck me, in that story, is the fact that when the master went out around 5:00pm, an hour before the end of the workday, he saw some laborers still standing and waiting to be hired. Guess what? They were hired and they got a full day’s pay.
Isn’t it amazing what a persistent and an unyielding spirit—refusing to give up, hanging in there in faith, believing God for His grace, and determined to succeed—can do for us in life? Scripture says, “My faithful one shall live by faith and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him” and in another place, it says: “whoever puts his hand on the plough and keeps looking back is not worthy of the kingdom of heaven”. I truly believe that in order to be successful in our endeavors, our hunger and desire for success must be greater than our fear of failure and willingness to give up. One of my friends once told me that failure is nothing but postponed success as long as we allow commitment, courage and persistence to coach our ambition and efforts.
Our aspirations in life will inevitably be met with resistance; pullbacks that can dampen and discourage our enthusiasm, deem the light of ambition, and push us into the willingness to quit. It takes grace and believing faith to cross the breaking line; the divide between success and failure. The question is: how do we react in the face of seeming failure? Do we quit or do we find detours to get to our goal? What do we do with the bricks and stones that life and others throw on the path of our goals and dreams? Do we use them to build bridges to crossover the huddles and build ladders to climb higher and higher, or do we use them to build walls that keep us down and cause us to sink deeper and deeper into failure?
May God grant us the grace to persevere in our endeavors! May He bless and grant success to our efforts in this life! May He reward our faith and hope in Him, Amen.
