"All of you also go into my vineyard"
24th september 2023
This is the call Jesus repeated to those he met at 9:00, 12:00, 15:00 and 17:00. Why this insistence? There seem to be two reasons:
– The vineyard, like the harvest, is large and the workers are few (Luke 10:2).
– God wants us to be his collaborators in building the Kingdom of God. From the beginning, God wanted man to take part in his project. He said to the first human pair: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).
So, when we pray: “Your Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10), we commit ourselves to collaborating in his coming, in his vineyard!
What is the work in the vineyard?
God invites us to carry out 5 tasks. They are both a gift we receive through baptism and a mission for us to carry out.
1. PRAYER – ADORATION
The first mission is prayer, adoration. Everything must start from there and everything must be directed towards it. But let’s not confuse prayer and/or adoration with “praying”! Through baptism we become children of God; to live as such is to “worship” the one who created us, saved us and dwells in us.
How is this done?
– By personally adhering to Christ, by giving our life to him.
– Through personal prayer (talking to God) and community prayer
– Through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist
2. FRATERNAL COMMUNION
The second task consists of choosing to live in a relationship of fraternal communion.
If baptism has made us children of God, it has also made us brothers and sisters to one another. God is “Our Father”!
It means choosing to be a family, to be a church where people know each other, appreciate each other, and look after each other; where no one comes and goes anonymously, but where you can always find someone “from home” who says: “Hello, my name is … Welcome to our church! A church where everyone is welcome, whatever their current situation!
3. FORMING DISCIPLES
The third task is to “conform ourselves to Christ”, to become like him, so that we too can say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:19).
This is how we become disciples who do the Father’s will. Disciples who, like Jesus, love, serve and proclaim the Good News.
4. SERVICE-MINISTRY
Becoming conformed to Christ, becoming like him, involves being servants like him. Jesus said: “I did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give life” (Matthew 20:28).
So every Christian is called to discover their God-given gifts and talents and put them at the service of the church and the world, accepting a ministry, a responsibility and growing in maturity and commitment.
5. EVANGELIZATION
As we are conformed to Christ, we too are sent: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Every Christian is called to be a disciple-missionary and to lead others to an encounter with Christ. This is the mission we have received from Him.
SFS
– Do a personal check-up starting with the 5 essentials.
– Check which of the essentials needs the most attention.
– Write down and share in my Small Group* what I’m going to do.
*Don’t have a small group yet? Sign up to start on the path at igrejas.arroios.anjos@gmail.com or go to the office of one of the churches.
Would you like to take an X-ray of your Christian life? Evaluate yourself based on the statements below.
– It’s about answering the statements authentically, spontaneously, and intuitively according to your personal feelings.
– This subjective evaluation can be a source of awareness.
– This assessment has no normative pretensions: it cannot cover every aspect of Christian life. It is only an indicator.
– Finally, it is not a question of reducing the Christian life to the quantitative, but it is a pedagogy to help you become aware of the indispensable role of the 5 essentials
How to quantify your answers:
1 ®I don’t see myself at all
2, 3 or 4 ® I partly see myself
5 ® corresponds to me to a large extent
Como quantificar tuas respostas:
| PRAYER | 1-5 |
| I am attentive to God’s presence and action in my life, I live more and more under his gaze, and I entrust the different areas of my life to him | |
| I experience moments of inner prayer with God | |
| I praise the Lord: I recognize what he does and I thank him, I recognize who He is and I celebrate Him. | |
| I learn to live from the Eucharist and for the Eucharist (participation in Mass every weekend, acts of adoration, thanksgiving after communion…) | |
| I repent of my sins, ask God for forgiveness and accept his mercy: I go to confession several times a year. | |
| TOTAL |
| FRATERNAL COMMUNION | 1-5 |
| I take part in one or more small groups offered by my church (fraternity, formation group, sharing group…) | |
| I participate in the strong and fraternal times of my family, my friends, my parish… | |
| I take free time for others | |
| I forgive others (willingly or with God’s help, if it’s difficult) | |
| I grew in the spirit of kindness and working for peace and unity | |
| TOTAL |
| FORMING DISCIPLES | 1-5 |
| I regularly read the Bible that transforms my life | |
| I am ever more attentive to what the Holy Spirit is asking me to do and I ask him to guide me more and more | |
| I try to get to know God better: who he is, how he sees things and how he acts (through reading, courses, multimedia…) | |
| I grow in my knowledge of myself: components of my being, virtues, weaknesses, attitudes… | |
| I know how to answer the most common questions and objections about God and the Church | |
| TOTAL |
| SERVIÇO-MINISTRY | 1-5 |
| I serve the people around me, especially the poor | |
| I am at the service of my Church: I participate in its proper functioning (commitment to a service, financial support, occasional action…) | |
| I have grown in the spirit of service (sharing, ability to work as a team, attention to the needs of others…) | |
| I know the gifts I can put at the service of others and I develop them (talents, abilities, charisms) | |
| I seek charity: I increasingly carry out actions with Love | |
| TOTAL |
| EVANGELIZATION | 1-5 |
| I have relationships with people who are searching spiritually and I ask God to give me opportunities to talk to them about Him | |
| I perform acts that bear witness to God’s Love | |
| I testify to what God has done in my life and I introduce Jesus (through the kerygma) to people who don’t know him: I’ve learned how to do it | |
| I propose to those close to me a community activity that corresponds to them | |
| I contribute to the evangelization missions of my parish (through a one-off commitment or by joining a team, through financial or material support or through prayer…) | |
| TOTAL |
| PRAYER | FRATERNAL COMMUNION | FORMING DISCIPLES | SERVICE MINISTRY | EVANGELIZATION |
Reading the results (of each of the 5 essentials):
5-8: With poor health…
9-17: That’s good, but how can I do better?18-25: Bravo, to be continue