Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ bẩy tuần 29 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ bẩy tuần 29 Thường Niên
Trong một lúc nào đó trong cuộc sống của chúng ta, có lẽ chúng ta cũng đã giống như cây vả mà Chúa Giêsu đã nhắc tới trong bài Tin Mừng hôm nay. Chúng ta cũng thế, chúng ta đều có nguy cơ bị từ bỏ, và bị coi như là thứ vô dụng. Nhưng với tình yêu thương của Thiên Chúa, Ngài đã thương xót chúng ta, và Ngài đã cho chúng ta có một cơ hội khác để sử đổi. Do đó, bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, kêu gọi tất cả chúng ta hãy tỏ lòng biết ơn Thiên Chúa một cách sâu sắc hơn vì Ngài đã cho chúng ta có được cơ hội thứ hai. Đây cũng là một phần đòi hỏi sự quyết tâm thật tình của chúng ta trong nhưng việc làm hầu chúng ta có được cái cơ hội thứ hai.
            Chúng ta sẽ hành động như thế nào ? Có phải là chúng ta sẽ vẫn giữ cái trạng thái trong sự lười biếng thiêng liêng? Thiên Chúa luôn yêu thương và sẽ giúp chúng ta, nhưng Ngài sẽ không ép buộc chúng ta vào thiên đàng. Chúng ta cần phải thay đổi cách sống của chúng ta. Chúng ta cần phải chấp nhận, tin tưởng  và trông cậy vào sự giúp đỡ, và sự yêu thương của Thiên Chúa. Chúng ta cần phải sản xuất những hoa quả của những việc làm tốt trong sự ăn năn, trong sự khiêm tốn và trong tình yêu thương. Với thời gian, không bao giờ là quá muộn hay quá trễ để chúng ta bắt đầu thay đổi cuộc sống của chúng ta để chúng ta được trở nên tốt hơn hay thánh thiện hơn. Chúng ta đừng để Chúa Giêsu Kitô phải thất vọng vì chúng ta, Ngài đã phải hạ mình, từ Thiên Chúa đã xuống làm người, một con người thật hèn hạ để ban cho chúng ta thêm một cơ hội thứ hai là để cứu chuộc chúng ta.
 
Saturday 29^th In Ordinary Time- LUKE 13:1-9
At some point in our lives, many of us were like the fig tree. We, too, were in danger of being rejected as useless. But in his mercy, God took pity on us. We were given another chance. Today's Gospel, therefore, calls forth from us deep gratitude to God for the second chance he has given us. It also calls for a deep determination on our part to make the most of our second chance.
How shall we act? Shall it be with the same spiritual laziness? God will help us but he will not force us into heaven. We need to change our ways. We need to accept the loving help of God. We need to produce the fruit of good deeds in repentance, humility and love. It is never too late to begin to change our lives for the better. Let us not disappoint Jesus who allowed himself to be cut down to give us a second chance to redeem ourselves.
 
Saturday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
“‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”  Luke 13:7–9
How much good fruit is born from your life? This is an important question to answer honestly. One of the best ways to discern whether or not we are serving the will of God is to look at the fruit being born from our lives.
Good fruit is born in various ways and manifests itself in various forms. However, the fruit you must look for is twofold. First, it is the fruit found within your own soul resulting from a life of true prayer and union with God. Second, we must look for the fruit that is born of charity in our actions toward others.
When you look honestly at your own soul, what do you see? Often, you may see a sort of war within you in which your disordered passions and appetites fight against the Spirit of God. Good spiritual fruit will require interior purification. Through prayer, fasting, spiritual reading and the like, you must look for ways in which God’s Spirit takes control of your disordered human nature and reorders it in accord with His holy will. Though we are all sinners and will all fall at times, we must work diligently to overcome every action, desire and temptation that we can objectively discern to be contrary to the will of God. At times, your fallen human nature can so forcefully draw you into sin that it can confuse your intellect and lead you to rationalization of your sins. But if you want the fruit of God’s presence in your life, then you must continually choose to make your interior life a fruitful garden in which the virtues of God grow and are nourished in abundance. So, again, what do you honestly see as you look into your own soul?
As God nourishes the virtues within us, and our disordered passions and appetites fall under the control of the Spirit of God, then we will also discover a need to allow the interior fruits of God’s love to flow forth from our lives into the lives of others. We will begin to desire selfless and sacrificial living. We will begin to desire to put others first. We will consider others’ lives as precious and filled with dignity. And we will overcome judgment, harshness, anger, and the like. We will find ourselves desiring the good of others and will supernaturally be drawn to do many small acts of kindness toward all. But it all starts with one’s interior life which our Lord desires to cultivate and fertilize with His grace so that the interior fruits of His love will grow within and ultimately become very manifest in one’s daily exterior actions toward all.
Reflect, today, upon your soul being like this fig tree that has not been bearing fruit. See our Lord coming to you and asking you to allow Him to cultivate the ground and fertilize it. Know that this requires change on your part. If you are to bear good fruit, then you need this intervention by our Lord. Work with Him, be diligent, and do all you can to begin to bear an abundance of good fruit so that you are not among those who are ultimately cut down by God’s justice.
My laboring Lord, You never cease to work diligently to cultivate the soil of my soul so that the seeds of Your mercy will grow and produce the good fruit You desire to come forth from my life. Please give me the grace I need to be faithful to a daily life of prayer, a practice of penance and a search for Your holy Word. Transform me, dear Lord, and bring forth the good fruit of Your holy Kingdom in my life. Jesus, I trust in You
 
Saturday 29^th In Ordinary Time 2024
Opening Prayer: Lord God, you are kind and patient with me. Help me respond to your loving care and produce the good fruits of repentance and charity. Do not let me be discouraged by evil in the world. I trust in you and hope that you will bring me to dwell in your house all the days of my life.
Encountering the Word of God
1. The Urgency of Repentance: The Gospel offers us a glimpse of how Jesus viewed the news of his day. When the people told Jesus about Pilate’s brutality, they likely wanted him to speak and comment about the unjust Roman occupation of their land. But Jesus uses the news about Pilate and the Galileans to teach two things. First, the sufferings of those murdered by Pilate were not a sign that they had sinned. As the Book of Job teaches, at times, the innocent and righteous suffer because God mysteriously permits it. Second, the person the people should truly fear offending is not Pilate but God. Instead of wasting their time thinking about how others might have sinned, they need urgently to repent from their own sins. Jesus drives home the teaching by referring to another event – the eighteen people who perished when a tower near the pool of Siloam fell. Yes, they died tragically and unexpectedly. But this was not because they were guilty of some sin. God knows how and when we will suffer. He also knows how and when we will die. We are ignorant of both things, and because of this, we must strive to be always ready to meet our Creator. And this preparation includes repentance from sin. 
2. The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree: On the one hand, Jesus teaches us through examples of unexpected tragedy that we need to repent and be ready to meet God. On the other, he teaches us in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree that God is patient and will work with us to help us produce good fruit. The parable invites us to compare the fig tree to Israel and the gardener to Jesus. The owner of the orchard, the Lord God, speaks of a period of three years. This lines up with the time of Jesus’ public ministry. During Jesus’ three years of ministry, God has looked for spiritual fruit from Israel and found none. The parable ends with the gardener pleading for more time, for one more year, hopeful that in the coming year, the tree will bear fruit. This means that while there is still hope for repentance, the time for repentance is running out. Just as the tree cannot fertilize itself, repentance is not something we accomplish by our own strength. We have the gardener working with us, cultivating the soil of our hearts to bring about true repentance and spiritual fruit.
3. Ministry in the Church and Christian Maturity: The Church of Christ is one. It is united but also characterized by a diversity of gifts, spiritualities, and ministries. As members of the Church, we have received God’s grace through Baptism. Certain members of the Church have been given other gifts of grace for the benefit of the Church. Christ has ascended to the right hand of the Father and poured out the Spirit as he bestows gifts and blessings on his people. The list of gifts Paul gives in Ephesians 4:11 focuses on those who speak the word of God and those who fulfill major leadership roles (Williamson, Ephesians, 116). Some, like bishops, are called to be apostles and exercise special authority in the Church. Others are prophets or evangelists. Still others are pastors or teachers. The purpose of these leadership roles is to equip the members of the church, particularly the laity, to accomplish all that ministry entails: service such as hospitality, caring for the poor, sick, and elderly among us, and preaching and teaching the Word of God. The work of ministry is not confined to those with leadership roles and gifts; rather, it is carried out by all the “holy ones,” the baptized believers, whom the leaders have “equipped” (Williamson, Ephesians, 117-118).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, I am a member of your Body, the Church. Help me to know my role in the Church and the gifts you have bestowed upon me. I promise to spend quality time with you so that I may truly know you and be able to be sent out by you to care for the sheep of your flock.