MESSAGE FROM MONS JOHN – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time / A – 1st October, 2017

Making a promise or a commitment to someone is easy. It makes us feel good and gives a distant hope that other people will be impressed with us. Nevertheless, if we fail to deliver the promise or the commitment we feel like a failure and other people rightly question our integrity.

Today’s gospel story about two brothers is essentially about integrity. One brother promises to help his father but fails to deliver. The other declines the request to help his father but, in the end, in spite of his earlier reluctance, delivers the help his father needs. One suspects that some people’s commitment to treat all human beings with dignity, fairness and justice is too difficult or too challenging so they do little about it. Other people do the best they can. It seems that the simple message today is to at least try to honour our commitment in relation to justice and peace.

We are invited to live with integrity.