Make Sure You Have Oil! (32nd Week, Year A)

  By now, anyone with an email address or cell number has received one of those scams telling you that someone halfway around the world wants to put 13 million dollars into your bank account, and all you have to do is send them some key information. I seem to get this incredible news just about every week! They just need my bank account number, Social Security number, date of birth, and a few other highly personal details. Naturally, I'm going to ignore it, and I hope you'll ignore any messages from me asking for gift cards!

But imagine that something like this was real. What if a wealthy and eccentric benefactor left you a large amount of money with some unusual conditions. Every morning, just after midnight, your bank account would be credited with $86,400. You could spend it however you wanted, but you couldn't save any of it. At the end of the day, whatever you hadn't spent would disappear. The next morning, you'd start all over again with another $86,400.

I suspect most of us would find creative ways to spend that money!

In fact, every day, you and I are given 86,400 seconds to use however we want. Every night, whatever time we've wasted or failed to use well is gone forever. There are no balances in the bank of time and no way to get yesterday back. Each day is a new account and an opportunity to make the best use of what we've been given.

But what does it mean to use our time wisely? The readings today give us two important words to consider: watching and waiting. These two things are inseparably bound together.

The first reading from the Book of Wisdom tells us that wisdom is something we must actively seek. I love that line: "Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed, for he shall find her sitting by his gate.” There's something beautiful about that image. Wisdom is waiting for us, but we have to be watching for her. We have to be alert and attentive, ready to recognize God's presence when it comes our way.

But God's wisdom doesn't always come when or how we expect. It's not something we can control or schedule. Sometimes we simply have to wait, trust that God is at work, and put ourselves in a humble posture to receive what he wants to give us.

This watching and waiting are precisely what we see in the parable of the ten bridesmaids. All ten were waiting for the bridegroom. All ten had lamps. All ten initially fell asleep when he was delayed. But five had prepared for the possibility that he might take longer than expected. They had extra oil. The other five did not. And when the bridegroom finally arrived, it was too late for the foolish bridesmaids to make up for what they had neglected.

One question people often ask about this parable is: Why didn't the wise bridesmaids share their oil? Weren't they being selfish? The answer has to do with what the oil represents. It's a symbol of the spiritual life… the character and virtue we develop through our relationship with God. It's something we cannot borrow from somebody else. We cannot live off someone else's friendship with God or borrow someone else's faith. We have to cultivate those things ourselves.

We cannot purchase virtue at an ATM, download holiness, or suddenly acquire a lifetime of faithfulness when we need it most. We have to put in the time and effort.

Which brings us back to those 86,400 seconds we're given every day.

We all have the same amount of time, but we don't invest it in the same things. It's easy to spend our days filling schedules, checking off responsibilities, keeping up with the news, managing finances, and meeting life's endless demands. None of those things are necessarily bad. They're part of being responsible adults. But we can become so consumed with the things of this world that we leave very little room for God. We fill every minute until there's no margin left for prayer, reflection, silence, or simply being attentive to the Lord.

I know I struggle with this. But it's not a particularly wise way to use our time. We can become so busy with the here and now that we forget to become the people God wants us to be…and our oil runs low.

So how do we keep our lamps filled with oil? It requires us to develop habits that nourish our relationship with God: daily prayer, knowing Scripture and our faith, receiving the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, and making Sunday worship the center of our week. It also means cultivating patience, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and love. These are the things that give our lives lasting value and prepare us to meet the Lord.

The wise bridesmaids didn't know when the bridegroom would arrive. They couldn't control his schedule or make him appear any sooner. All they could do was prepare and remain ready. We don't know when or how the Lord will come into our lives. Sometimes he visits through another person, a moment of grace, an unexpected challenge, or an opportunity to serve. Sometimes his wisdom becomes clear only after we've waited patiently and trusted him. Our responsibility isn't to control the timing. It's to remain watchful, patient, and prepared.

Perhaps the challenge for us this week is to take a look at how we're spending our time. Are we so busy filling our schedules that we've left no room for God? Are we so distracted by life's demands that we fail to recognize the Lord when he stands before us? Have we stored up enough spiritual oil, or might we be at risk of running out as we fall asleep?

We don't have to accomplish something extraordinary every day. But we do need to make room for God every day. We need to watch for his presence, wait patiently for his wisdom, and nourish the spiritual life that keeps our lamps burning.

Let's not waste the time we've been given. Let's be wise in how we use it, patient in our waiting, and attentive in our watching, so that whenever the Bridegroom comes, he will find us ready to enter the banquet of his love.

Be A Saint! (All Saints, 2026)

  2026 happens to be one of those years when we get to celebrate All Saints Day on a Sunday. For many Catholics, becoming a saint sounds admirable but unrealistic. We believe in the saints, admire their holiness, and ask for their intercession, but struggle to imagine God doing something similar in our own lives. When I tell people that God wants them to become a saint, I often notice a distant stare that seems to say, “that's a nice thought, but don’t hold your breath!” I think most of us have some reservations about the idea. So let's look at a some common myths about becoming a saint and see which ones might live in our heads.

Myth #1: “I’m just an ordinary person.” We tend to think of saints as superhuman people who accomplished extraordinary things. But most lived ordinary lives, fulfilling everyday responsibilities and growing in holiness through small, faithful acts of love.

The truth is, holiness isn't reserved for a few extraordinary people. It's what God calls everyone to become.

Myth #2: “I’m too sinful. I’ve made too many mistakes.” We remember our past sins, failures, and selfish decisions. We may believe God forgives us but still struggle to believe we could ever become genuinely holy. In those moments, we would do well to remember St. Peter, who denied Jesus three times, or St. Paul, who persecuted Christians.

The truth is, saints aren't people who never sinned. They're sinners who allowed God's mercy to change them.

Myth #3: “I’m not holy enough, and I keep struggling with the same sins.” We imagine saints as people who are always patient, peaceful, and prayerful. Meanwhile, we go to confession, resolve to do better, and find ourselves falling into the same patterns again. We wonder whether we'll ever change.

The truth is, holiness doesn't mean we never struggle or fall. It means we keep turning back to God, trusting his mercy, and taking the next step.

Myth #4: “I don't have enough time.” Between work, raising children, caring for aging parents, and managing everyday responsibilities, holiness can feel like one more thing on an already overwhelming list. We tell ourselves we'll become more prayerful, patient, or generous when life finally settles down.

The truth is, our daily responsibilities are where holiness is found. Changing diapers, caring for a spouse, doing honest work, and serving a difficult person can all become acts of love. These things aren't getting in the way of our holiness. They're the very path to it!

Myth #5: “I could never live like a priest or a nun.” We imagine that becoming a saint requires hours of prayer or a life devoted entirely to religious activities. If that's what holiness looks like, most people will pass.

The truth is, God calls people to holiness in all kinds of ways: raising families, teaching, serving the poor, leading, or quietly caring for those in need. God is creative, and he has made many different roads that lead to sainthood.

Myth #6: “I’m not as good as other people, and I don't want to give up everything I enjoy.” We compare ourselves with people who seem more devout or generous. At the same time, we worry that holiness means giving up everything we enjoy and spending the rest of our lives being miserable.

The truth is, God isn't asking us to become someone else or reject everything good in life. He doesn’t compare us to others. He’s asking us to become the people he created us to be. Holiness means enjoying God's gifts without allowing them to become our gods. And the saints are some of the most joyful, fully alive people who have ever lived!

Myth #7: “My circumstances make holiness impossible.” We might be dealing with family conflict, financial pressure, loneliness, a difficult marriage, or a painful past. We convince ourselves that we could become holy if only our circumstances were different.

The truth is, we don't need perfect circumstances to grow in holiness. Throughout the Church's 2,000-year history, saints have emerged from just about every imaginable situation. Our struggles don't put us beyond God's reach.

Notice what these myths have in common. We think holiness depends on our own abilities. We confuse holiness with perfection. And we keep putting it off until some future version of ourselves is finally ready. But that's not how holiness works.

St. Paul reminds us that God chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong. And Jesus tells his disciples, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”That's the key. God doesn't call us to holiness because we're already perfect. He calls us because he wants to transform us through his grace.

What if the biggest obstacle to becoming a saint isn't that we're too sinful, too busy, or too ordinary? What if it's that we've convinced ourselves sainthood is for someone else? Don't be discouraged by your weaknesses. Don't assume your past disqualifies you. And don't wait for life to become less complicated or for the people around you to become easier to love.

God knows exactly who we are, with all our strengths, weaknesses, and struggles. And he still calls us to holiness. The saints weren't people who never needed God's grace. They were people who learned how to use it day after day until it transformed them.

That's what we celebrate today: not just what God has done in the saints who came before us, but what he wants to do in each one of us. That work can begin today, right where we are. Sainthood is possible for you and for me, not because we're strong enough to accomplish it, but because God is good enough, merciful enough, and powerful enough to bring it about in us.

Wisdom of the Ages (29th Sunday, Year A)

  When I was in middle school, I decided my mom and dad could use some parenting advice. So I sat them down and offered my two cents on how they could improve and better meet my lofty standards of parenthood. I’m sure they were grateful for my wisdom! They handled it remarkably well and promised to keep my suggestions in mind.

I look back on that moment now and cringe! I’m reminded of a Mark Twain quote about how foolish he thought his father was when he was a teenager, and how amazed he was by how much the old man seemed to have learned by the time he became an adult. Funny how that works. Sometimes it takes maturity to recognize that the people who came before us might actually have something to teach us.

I think that’s a helpful place to begin when considering the relationship between our Catholic faith and the way we vote. The Church has been wrestling with questions of right and wrong, human dignity, marriage, family, and our responsibilities to each other for 2,000 years. Drawing on Scripture, the teaching of Christ, and the experience of generations of Christians, she offers a depth of moral wisdom that no individual or political party can match. And we believe Christ has given his Church the Holy Spirit to guide her in faithfully teaching the truth about faith and morals.

That doesn’t mean the Church should wade into every issue that politics poses or that every statement made by a Church leader is infallible. But it does mean we should approach her moral teaching with humility rather than assuming we know better simply because we disagree.

This brings us to today’s Gospel, where Jesus tells us to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” We have responsibilities as citizens, and voting is one of them. But we are also citizens of heaven, and our highest allegiance belongs to God. So when those responsibilities come together, we need to ask ourselves: Am I allowing my faith to shape my political decisions, or am I allowing my political opinions to rule my faith?

That’s an important distinction in our time. Every election brings fierce arguments, dire warnings, and accusations of treachery. Political parties try to convince us that their candidates can fix all our problems and the other side threatens everything we hold dear. These divisions have found their way into families, friendships, and even our parish communities.

It can be tempting to approach our faith the same way. We choose our candidate, pick our party, and decide which issues matter most. Then we want the Church to agree with us, embracing the teachings that support our positions while setting aside those that challenge them.

But that’s not how this works. We should not ask the Church to validate the political choices we’ve already made. We must allow her teachings to challenge, inform, and sometimes correct those choices. If we believe Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, then his truth must be allowed to challenge us, even when it makes us uncomfortable or conflicts with our political loyalties.

So, how do we put that into practice when we vote?

First, recognize that voting is a moral responsibility, not simply a personal preference. We’re not just choosing the candidate we like best or the person who promises to make our lives easier. Our decisions help determine how society treats others, especially the vulnerable and those unable to defend themselves.  

Second, recognize that not all issues carry the same moral weight. Some actions are intrinsically evil and can never be justified, regardless of intentions or circumstances. The direct taking of innocent human life is one of them. That is why protecting unborn children deserves particular moral seriousness in our voting decisions. Abortion is not merely a political disagreement; it concerns whether the most vulnerable members of the human family will be protected and their most basic right…the right to life…respected.

    Our bishops identify this as a preeminent priority because without life, none of our other rights matter. The fact that all the Missouri bishops have endorsed Amendment 3 on the upcoming ballot should lead us to take their teaching and recommendation seriously as we prepare to vote in a couple weeks. Of course, our commitment to life cannot stop there. We must also build a culture in which every person’s dignity is recognized and vulnerable people receive practical support.

Third, form your conscience rather than simply following your feelings or political instincts. Saying, “I voted according to my conscience,” isn’t enough. Conscience is not simply whatever we happen to think is right. We must form it through prayer, Scripture, Church teaching, reason, and an honest examination of the facts. That means learning what candidates actually believe, considering the likely consequences of their policies, and being willing to reconsider our assumptions.

Finally, never confuse our Catholic faith with a political party. Our faith must remain free to challenge any party or platform when its positions or actions conflict with human dignity and the common good.

As your priest, I have a responsibility to help you understand what the Church teaches and encourage you to take those teachings seriously. I’m not here to endorse a political party or pretend every difficult decision has an easy answer. But our faith has real consequences for how we vote. We cannot separate what we believe here at Mass from the choices we make when we leave this church.

So, as we prepare to exercise our responsibilities as citizens, let’s begin with humility. Let’s pray for wisdom, study the issues and candidates carefully, and allow God’s truth to challenge us, even when it disrupts the positions we already hold. The goal is not simply to ‘win’. It is to exercise our civic responsibilities in a way that respects every human person’s dignity and advances the common good. We render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but we must never forget that everything ultimately belongs to God…including our loyalties, our decisions, and our votes.

May the Lord give us the wisdom to recognize what is true, the courage to stand up for what is right, and the humility to change when we need to change. And may our faith not only guide the way we vote, but shape the way we live, so that we may help build a society reflecting the love, justice, and mercy of Jesus Christ.

What's Your Excuse? (28th Sunday, Year A)

  One of the distinguishing marks of childhood, is how creative we can be when it comes to creating excuses. Many, if not most, were pretty far-fetched and unbelievable, but in our minds, they made perfect sense. Not so much to parents and teachers, and certainly not to your adult self looking back on them!

One of my brothers was particularly creative with language. Like most families, we weren’t allowed to argue with our fists. Generally, that’s a pretty good rule for all of us to live by! Well, my brother slipped up one day and made his point with another sibling kinetically. When he was pleading his case before Mom and Dad, he insisted, “I didn’t punch my sister. I pushed her with my fist.”

Extra credit for the effort to explain, but still an F in following the rules!

It’s funny how we can convince ourselves that our excuses make perfect sense, even when everyone else can see right through them. This is not something we completely outgrow. We just get a little more sophisticated in the excuses we make, especially when God invites us to do something we don’t really want to do.

Think about the Gospel today. Jesus tells us about a king who prepares a wedding feast for his son. He sends out invitations, but the guests refuse to come. So he sends his servants again, explaining that everything is ready. The feast is prepared, the table is set, and there’s no good reason not to come. Yet some guests go back to their farms or businesses, while others mistreat the messengers.

What makes this parable so striking is that the king isn’t asking them to do something burdensome. He’s inviting them to a celebration, to a free meal with all of the best food and drink! All the hard work is done. He wants to share something good with them, and they act as though they have better things to do.

Jesus is speaking directly to the religious leaders of his day, who refuse to recognize him as the Messiah. But he’s also speaking to us. God continues to invite us into personal relationship with him, and we can be remarkably good at coming up with reasons to turn him down. Sometimes our excuses sound perfectly reasonable. “I’m too busy to pray. I’ll get back to church when things settle down. I know I need to go to confession, but I’m not ready yet. I know I should forgive that person, but you don’t know what they did to me.” Other times, we simply put God off. We assume there will be more time later, when work slows down, the kids are older, or we finally get around to it.

But here’s the problem: we don’t have an unlimited amount of time to respond to God’s invitation. This life is the time we’ve been given to decide whether we will accept his invitation, to allow him to change us, and prepare our souls for eternity. God is patient and will continue to call us throughout our lives, but we shouldn’t presume we can put him off indefinitely.

What what makes our excuses so ridiculous is that God isn’t inviting us to something that will make our lives worse. He’s inviting us to the wedding feast! He wants us to experience his love, his mercy, and the joy of living in friendship with him. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he knows what will truly make us happy.

One day, at the moment of death, each of us will stand before God, finally seeing his love and wisdom in their fullness. Imagine understanding how often he called you back to himself and how many opportunities you passed up because you thought you had something more important to do. How foolish some of our excuses will seem then! How silly it will seem that we were too busy to pray, too proud to apologize, or too stubborn to let go of a sin we knew was keeping us from God.

The point isn’t to make us afraid of God. It’s to help us recognize the urgency of his invitation while we still have time to respond. God isn’t looking for an excuse to keep us out. He’s looking for every opportunity to share his love and grace!

That’s also why the detail about the wedding garment at the end of the Gospel is so important. When the king finds a guest without a proper garment, the man has no explanation for himself. The invitation was real, and he was allowed to come, but he wasn’t prepared to honor it. Accepting God’s invitation means more than just showing up. It means allowing ourselves to be changed. We can’t expect to follow Jesus while insisting that nothing in our lives needs to be transformed.

Of course, none of us does this perfectly. We all fall short. But there’s a difference between struggling to follow Jesus and deciding that we don’t need to. The Church isn’t a club for perfect people. It’s a place for sinners who know they need God’s help. When we fail, we turn back to him rather than using our failures as another excuse to give up.

As we sit with this hard-hitting parable, we can ask, What excuse am I making for not responding to God’s invitation? Is there a sin I need to confront, a person I need to forgive, a commitment I need to honor, or more time I need to give to God?

We don’t have to fix everything at once. But we must take the invitation seriously and respond to the grace God is offering us today.

The good news is that the invitation is still open. No matter what we’ve done or how far we’ve wandered, we can still turn back to God. Let’s not wait until the end of our lives to discover how foolish or insane our excuses were. Let’s respond while we have the opportunity to determine our eternity. One day, when we see God face to face and finally understand the fullness of his love, we will realize that accepting his invitation was never a burden or an inconvenience. It was the most important decision we could ever make. May God give us the grace to become his chosen!

Have No Anxiety at All! (27th Sunday, Year A)

  If I asked you right now, “What are you anxious about?”… what would come to mind? Maybe it’s gas prices, interest rates, or the cost of just about everything. Maybe it’s political issues, the conflict with Iran, concerns about the power of artificial intelligence, or any of the countless other threats and problems that are placed in front of us every day.

This raises another interesting question: How much anxiety in our lives comes from the things that actually happen to us, and how much comes from the things we are constantly being told to worry about?

We live in a world where the average American spends something like six hours a day looking at screens. And a lot of what comes across those screens is designed to get our attention by making us angry, frightened or outraged. The news cycle has discovered that the crisis of anxiety is very good for business. The more worried we are, the more we click, scroll and watch. We do so almost subconsciously at this point, and then we wonder why we have trouble finding peace.

With this sense of worry and foreboding all around us, St. Paul’s words in the second reading are especially meaningful: “Have no anxiety at all.” That would make perfect sense coming from someone sitting on a beach, enjoying a peaceful retirement. But Paul wasn’t on easy street. He was under house arrest in Rome, in chains and under guard, waiting for his trial. He knew that his faith in Christ could very well lead to his execution. And yet his advice is still, “Have no anxiety at all.”

St. Paul isn't telling us to pretend that problems don't exist. He isn't saying that there aren't legitimate things to be concerned about. He is telling us that anxiety doesn't have to control us. Instead, he offers a better way: “In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God…will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

That is a very different way of living.

I think one of the problems for us is that we spend an enormous amount of time looking at everything except Christ. We wake up and reach for our phones. We check the news, scroll through social media, listen to commentary and read about the latest crisis. Before we know it, our minds are filled with the problems of the entire world, most of which we have absolutely no power to change or grace to get involved with, and we get consumed worrying about them.

I'm not speaking from some high and mighty place. I struggle with this too. I have a bad habit of reading news commentary before bed. Lately, I’ve also been spending far too much time stalking real estate. Neither is an especially good way to end the day. If the last things I am putting into my mind before I go to sleep are political commentary, bad news or houses I will never be able to buy, I'm not exactly giving God much opportunity to have the last word.

So recently I put a little New Testament on my nightstand. And I have made myself read for about five minutes every night, no matter how tired I am. The difference is no surprise but wonderfully noticeable: peace. Five minutes isn't much, but there is something very different about ending the day looking at the Lord rather than looking at the problems of the world or feeding the desire for more stuff.

And that gets us to the second part of Paul's advice. He says, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, whatever is excellent, whatever is worthy of praise, think about these things.”

In other words, pay attention to what you are putting into your mind. 

Our thoughts matter. What we repeatedly look at, listen to and dwell upon shapes the way we see the world and what our interior life becomes. If we spend hours consuming anger, outrage and anxiety, we shouldn't be surprised when we become more anxious, more angry and more discouraged.

So perhaps one of the simplest spiritual habits we could adopt is to fast from the news and the internet for a little while every day. Put down the phone. Turn off the television. We don't have to know every breaking story the moment it breaks, or carry the entire world around in our heads.

Instead, give some of that attention to Christ. Read a little bit of the Gospels. Read the daily Mass readings. Spend a few minutes sitting quietly in the presence of God. Better yet, come here and sit in this church or in the Adoration Chapel. Let your mind become quiet enough to remember that God is here and listen to what he has to say. Ultimately, the answer to anxiety isn't simply less information. It's more of God.

St. Paul knew suffering, uncertainty, imprisonment and the possibility of death. And yet he could say, “Have no anxiety at all.” The saints weren't people who lived in a world without problems. They were people who knew where to look when problems came.

So that's our challenge today. First of all to figure out: Where is our anxiety? What are we worried about right now? And how might we be feeding it in the things we watch, listen to, and think about?

And then after we identify the problem, we must follow St. Paul… by having no anxiety… Being prayerful… And turning our mind toward all that is good. The world will always give us something to worry about. But Christ is always giving us reasons to have peace!

Two Types of Freedom (26th Sunday, Year A)

  One of the wonderful innovations of technology in the last few years is the ability to “unsend or edit” emails and text messages. There are lots of reasons why someone might want to do this, and most of us can probably think of moments when we wished we could take something back. I have a bad habit of sending emails too soon, before I include all the recipients or attachments. Of course, I usually remember immediately after pressing “send.” It’s a blessing to be able to change our response, to right a wrong, and correct an answer before it is final. And in a much more important way, the Gospel reminds us that God gives us the ability to change our answer to him so long as there is still breath in our lungs.

The father asks his two sons to go work in his vineyard. One says no, but later changes his mind and goes. The other says yes, but never follows through. And Jesus asks, “Which of the two did his father’s will?” The answer is obvious: the first. In reflecting on this Gospel, it seems there are two kinds of freedom hidden in this simple story.

The first is the freedom to say no. The father gives his sons a choice. He doesn't force them to work in his vineyard. He allows them to say no and respects their free will… even if it is misused. That is also true of our relationship with the Lord. God gives us the freedom to reject him. He does not force our love or obedience.

The freedom to say no is what makes our “yes” meaningful. If we have no ability to say no, then our yes isn't really an act of love. If someone says, “You have to love me,” that's not love. Love requires freedom. This is why St. John tells us that “perfect love drives out fear.” We don't say yes to God because we are terrified of him or simply because we feel obligated. God invites us, and we freely choose to respond. We know we could walk away, but instead we choose to stay.

There is a second freedom in this Gospel which is just as important: the freedom to honor our yes. The second son says yes, but never goes. His example points to something we all struggle with: sometimes we mean what we say, but we don't follow through. Saying yes is easy; living our yes is much harder because our feelings change. Some days I feel like praying, and some days I don't. Some days I feel generous and patient. Other days I prefer to live alone on an island.

St. John of the Cross has a wonderful saying about this. He says, “If you don't feel love, if there is no love, put love there, and then you will find love.” 

In other words, don't wait until you feel loving before you choose to love. Parents understand this. There are plenty of moments when caring for your children doesn't come with warm and fuzzy feelings. You're tired, frustrated, or you've had the same conversation 87 times. And yet you do what needs to be done. You do it because you love your child and have made a commitment. The feelings and affection follow the decision.

That is an important lesson for our relationship with God. We can sometimes think that if we don't feel close to God, our faith must not be real. If prayer feels dry, maybe we aren't praying correctly. But Christian freedom means we don't have to be slaves to our feelings. We can say, “I may not feel like it, but I have chosen this, and I am free enough to do it anyway.” We can pray when we don't feel like praying. We can forgive when we don't feel like forgiving. We can serve when we don't feel like serving. Many times love begins not with a feeling, but with a decision.

God himself loves us this way. He doesn't love us only on the days when we're lovable. He doesn't remain faithful to us only when we have earned it. His love is steadfast, even when our response to him is inconsistent. And that's why the Gospel is good news. Maybe today helps us recognize that we have been saying no to God in some area of our lives. The good news is that we can change our minds. It is never too late, while we are alive, to take back our “no” and say “yes.”

Or maybe we've been more like the second son. We've said all the right things, but our lives haven't always followed our words. We come to Mass, say our prayers, teach our children the faith, perhaps even work in the Church…and yet there are areas where we continue to resist what God asks of us. The Gospel reminds us that God isn't simply looking for a verbal yes. He wants a yes that becomes a lifestyle, manifested in actions.

So perhaps the question for us today isn't simply, “Which son am I?” Because at different times, we are probably both. The better question is: What is God asking me to say yes to today? And is there something that I promised God I would do but have been finding excuses to keep me from actually doing it?

In the end, that is what Christian freedom really is for…not simply the ability to do whatever I want or whatever I feel like doing. It is the freedom to choose what is good, to give ourselves to someone we love, and then to remain faithful to that choice. Sometimes the most loving thing we can say to God is, “I said yes. So I'm going.” Or, I told you no, but now I realize that was wrong. Now I will serve! My ‘no’ can become yes! The Father is still inviting each of us into the vineyard. Each day we are alive, he gives us the freedom to answer. Let us resolve to do his will!

"Are You Envious Because I am Generous" (25th Sunday, Year A)

  There is something about the Gospel today that always sets off a little indignation. I suppose its a little presumptuous that I tend to put myself in the shoes of the workers who labored all day. Perhaps you feel the same way. The workers who toiled from sunup to sundown were angry because those who arrived at the very end received the same wage. Their complaint feels justified. It seems unfair. We can be tempted to look at what someone else has received and think, “Wait a minute. They don't deserve that. I worked harder. I sacrificed more. I've been here longer.” But Jesus is putting his finger on something deeper than simple fairness. He is exposing the danger of envy.

Envy is different from just wanting what someone else has. We might see another person's house, vacation, health, family, talent or success and think, “I wish I had that.” That's jealousy and it can sometimes spur us to work harder or grow into our gifts more completely as we see others maximizing their excellence. Envy goes a step further down a dark road: “I don't necessarily need what they have. I just don't want them to have it.” Somehow another person's blessing becomes offensive to us.

There is an old saying that comparison is the thief of joy. We can have something perfectly good and be grateful for it…until we look at the life or property of someone else. Suddenly our house isn't good enough, our vacation wasn't as exciting, or our life doesn't seem as blessed.

And usually, nothing has actually changed. We still have exactly what we had five minutes ago. What has changed is what we're comparing it to. That's what happens to the workers in today's Gospel. They received exactly what they had agreed to work for. Nothing was taken away from them. But when they saw what the other workers received, suddenly their share wasn't enough.

And there is another problem: we often don't understand the whole picture. We see what somebody else has received, but we don't know everything about their life. We don't know what they've suffered, what they've sacrificed, what burdens they carry, or what God may be doing in their heart. We see one piece of the picture and think we understand the whole thing.

That's where misunderstanding can feed envy. We make assumptions about what someone deserves or why God has allowed something to happen. But Scripture reminds us, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” God's perspective is infinitely greater than ours. Sometimes what looks unfair to us is very different from God's perspective.

The workers in the Gospel couldn't appreciate the master's generosity because they were looking at his gifts through the lens of comparison. They weren't grateful for what they had received; they were offended by the gifts given to others which took nothing away from them. That can happen to us, too. When we don't understand God's ways, we can begin to judge God, judge other people, and resent the blessings he gives them.

   That’s why humility is so important. None of us are the workers who have been laboring since the very beginning. We are all latecomers in some sense. We stand here today benefiting from two thousand years of Christians who have prayed, studied, sacrificed, suffered and witnessed to the Gospel before us. We inherited the Faith. We didn't invent it or build the Church or hand Tradition down from generation to generation. So many people came before us and did that for us.

The same is true of our salvation. None of us can stand before God and say, “Look at everything I've done. You owe me.” God doesn't owe us our existence, our health, our families, our opportunities, our faith, our forgiveness, or the countless blessings we experience every day. Everything is a gift. And compared with what we actually deserve, God has already been extravagantly generous with every one of us.

So when we encounter someone who seems obnoxiously blessed, our first response shouldn't be envy. It should be gratitude. If someone has been given a beautiful family, rejoice with them. If someone has a gift or talent, be grateful for it. If someone succeeds, celebrate their good fortune. If God has given someone a blessing that we don't have, we can simply say, “Lord, thank you for giving that person this gift.” Rejoicing in the blessings of others has a way of magnifying and multiplying our own!

That's not always easy. Envy can sneak into our hearts through resentment when we see others get things we don’t think they deserve. And the more we keep looking sideways at everybody else's life, the harder it becomes to appreciate the life God has actually given us.

So when we catch ourselves thinking, “Why does he have that? Why does she get that? Why is their life so much easier?”, we must stop and turn our attention back toward God: “Lord, thank you for what you have given me. Help me to be grateful for my blessings and genuinely happy for those of others. And help me to trust that you see what I cannot.”

Perhaps that's why the master ends the Gospel with that piercing question: “Are you envious because I am generous?” It's a question worth reflecting on. Can I rejoice when God is generous to someone else? Can I trust that God's generosity toward another person doesn't diminish his generosity toward me?

The answer begins with gratitude. We don't have to keep looking around the vineyard, counting everybody else's wages. We can look at what God has placed in our own hands and simply say, “Lord, thank you.” Thank you for the life you've given me. Thank you for the people you've placed in my life. Thank you for the faith handed on to me. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for inviting me into your vineyard in the first place.

We are all blessed far beyond what we deserve. As we continue with the Eucharist, it is enough to give thanks for God's countless blessings and rejoice that he is generous beyond our understanding!