Gaudeamus in Domino, we sang as we came into Mass today. Let us rejoice in the Lord! Today’s feast is a holyday of obligation, a solemnity taking precedence even over Sunday, and it’s a day of joy for the whole Church, and for all of us.

Fr. Prior Simon

Today we get a very entertaining passage from Matthew's Gospel, short but full of tension and drama, sarcasm and wit. It all happens after Our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the cleansing of the Temple. Riding on the wave of popular support, as it were, Jesus has swept right into what was the very centre of political power and religious devotion for the Jewish people.

Today’s second reading gives us just 4 verses from Philippians. The passage is very familiar: a wonderful one to take very slowly, reading it word by word as a prayerful lectio divina. Chewing over these words, we can draw life-giving nourishment from them, and inspiration, and encouragement, and consolation, and affirmation.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we see him at his happiest. The Christians in Philippi had none of the severe problems that beset other Churches, for example in Galatia or at Corinth. Here was Paul in his prison cell, chained either to a wall or to a soldier, and whenever he thought of the Philippians, he was cheered and consoled.

Isaiah 55:6-9; Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a; Matthew 20:1-6

What is the Kingdom of heaven like? What is God’s way of salvation like? What is the Christian life like?

Once upon a time, a householder set out to hire labourers for his vineyard. Our Lord tells us this story, which may perhaps strike us as somewhat bizarre, then he leaves us without any sort of explanation. So that gives us rather a lot of freedom to interpret or apply it as we can.