The Liturgy is Forming Us to Have a Holy Indifference (25th Sunday of Ordinary Time) – Year A

Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: Isaiah 55:6-9, Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a, Matthew 20:1-16a. (Watch on YouTube) The Liturgy is Forming Us to Have a Holy Indifference The prophet Isaiah invites us to seek and to call upon the Lord in chapter 55, which is the final part of the 'Book of Comfort' that began in chapter 40. This section of Scripture has been called 'An Invitation to Grace' because it reveals God's hope and mercy for us. We heard verses 10 and 11 on the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and today we listen to verses 6 to 9, where Isaiah says, "Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near," and ends with "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts." Some translations say, "For My plans are not your plans, Nor are My ways your ways." These verses might seem contradictory if we isolate them from the rest of the Old Testament. For, how can we find and approach a God who is near but also so distant and transcendent – is this God accessible or not? On the contrary, the Old Testament canon contains twenty-nine exact occurrences of the phrase "seek the Lord," and all of them link seeking the Lord to worship, sacrifice, or covenant fidelity. Many instances also connect seeking the Lord to our heart, that is, the core of our identity and existence. Therefore, the Old Testament understanding of how we are summoned to seek the Lord sheds new light on what our Lord Jesus meant when He said to us, "Seek, and you will find,"[1] and "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."[2] At the same time, Christ Jesus makes the invitation to seek the Lord achievable because He truly came close to us and lived among us and is still present with us and within us through the Liturgy of the Mass and the Sacraments, of which the most unique is the Holy Eucharist. So, even though God remains transcendent, He also remains fully human and fully divine and indwells us in the person of the Holy Spirit to guide us to all truth so that we can know His plans and His ways and respond to the grace to follow them. Imagine living a life so dedicated to God that you could say what the Apostle Paul said in his letter to the Philippians (1:20c-24, 27a). He was in prison and facing the possibility of receiving the death penalty, but he declared that he would glorify Christ in his body, whether he lived or died. He wrote, "Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better. Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit. Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ." This is the kind of holy indifference we are called to have as followers of Christ. Indeed, the liturgy of the Catholic Mass teaches us this every time we worship in it, by reminding us that our life is not our own but God's. When we seek God in everything, we are indifferent to the outcomes of our actions because they do not belong to us but to Him. Moreover, we experience the joy and peace from kn