Be a good tenant!
2 Pet. 1:2-7; Mark 12:1-12

Imagine! We live in a world that isn’t ours, with a life that isn’t ours, with a body and soul that aren’t ours, breathing air that isn’t ours, making money that isn’t ours, boasting about gifts that aren’t ours… The list goes on. So what exactly is ours? Everything we have and are belongs to God alone. We cannot continue living as though we owned the world. We are tenants; we’re merely passing through. Jesus particularly cautions the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders today; they were bad tenants. God has planted his vineyard, fenced round it, dug out a trough for the wine press and built a tower. He’s done everything for our good. Why can’t we be good tenants?

Friends, St Charles Lwangwa and his companions, understood the Christian assignment. As far back as 1885, here in Africa, as many as twenty two innocent persons, some of whom were children, were put to death because they stood up for truth; because they rebuked the King for his debauchery, and for murdering an Anglican missionary. They were killed for praying from a book, and for refusing to allow themselves be ritually sodomised. Beloved in Christ, just like these martyrs, St Peter admonishes us to do our best, making every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

Good morning dear. God bless your week ahead. Holy Martyrs of Uganda, pray for us!

Today’s Readings

FIRST READING
He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature.
A reading from the second Letter of Saint Peter (2 Peter 1:2-7)

Beloved: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

The word of the Lord.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM Psalm 91: 1-2.14-15ab.15c-16 (R. see 2b)
R/. O my God, I trust in you

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High,
and abides in the shade of the Almighty,
says to the Lord, “My refuge,
my stronghold, my God in whom I trust!” R/.

Since he clings to me in love, I will free him,
protect him, for he knows my name.
When he calls on me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in distress. R/.

R/. O my God, I trust in you

I will deliver him, and give him glory.
With length of days I will content him;
I will show him my saving power. R/.

ALLELUIA Revelation 1:5ac
Alleluia. Jesus Christ, you are the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead; you have loved us and washed away our sins in your blood. Alleluia.

GOSPEL              
“They took the beloved son, killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark (Mark 12: 1-12)

At that time: Jesus began to speak to the chief priests and the scribes and the elders in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed.” He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture: ‘The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?” And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them; so they left him and went away.

The Gospel of the Lord.