Mary, Star of the Sea 

   Church

Sunday, Sept. 27 is Priesthood Sunday, a special day set aside to honor the holy priesthood. On this day, we are asked to reflect upon and affirm the essential role of the priesthood in the life of the Church. Without priests, the Mass could not be offered and sacraments could not be celebrated. Today, we make time to honor and thank our parish priests for saying yes to Christ, and yes to our One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We wish to express our sincerest appreciation to our priests at MSOS by praying for them in a special way in Our Prayers of the Faithful. We appreciate our priests and support them today for  having given their lives to Christ.

Today’s Gospel (Matthew 21:28) has us seeing two sons who were asked by their father to: “Go out and work in the vineyard today.”  The first son refused but later went to work in the vineyard.  The second son agreed to work in the vineyard but he did not go.

The Gospel is from St. Matthew 20:1-16a. The call to the vineyard (to the Church), through God's gift of faith and the sacrament of baptism, is a gift for which we can never sufficiently thank God. If we remain in the vineyard and labor honestly, that is, if we cooperate with the actual graces God is continually giving us, we are assured of reaching heaven when our earthly days are ended. The work we have to do in God's vineyard is the fulfilling of the duties of our state in life. By carrying out these duties faithfully and honestly we are doing the will of God and earning heaven.

His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart (Mt 18:32-35).”

"Amen, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matt 18:19-20)." The Gospel is from St. Matthew 18:15-20. Unfortunately, there are far too many Christians today who pay no heed to the serious obligation of encouraging an erring brother to give up his sinful ways. They shrug it off by saying : "I have more than enough to do to keep myself from sin" or "am I my brother's keeper"? The answer is in this lesson we have just read. We are our brothers' keepers, and even if we have many temptations and inclinations to sin we shall not overcome them if we have no time to think of our neighbors' need.

The Gospel is from Matt. 16:21-27. In foretelling his sufferings and death, Christ intended to prepare his disciples and other followers for what he knew would be for them a severe crisis of faith. He also took occasion from it to remind his disciples, and all others who would follow him, of what their attitude to suffering and death should be. He told them, and us too, that we must be ever ready to accept sufferings in this life, and even an untimely death if that should be demanded of us, rather than deny our Christian faith.