Daily Mass - twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary time

This is going to be a short post, for I am a little late tonight. We had the first public Mass offered this morning since March, about which I am quite pleased. It was nice to see people in the church again, and I was sorry that I could not meet most of them, either before or after, mostly because of the present restrictions. I await better days. Mass was offered for the repose of the soul of Sam Lukins (+), and I was pleased to recognise two members of his family before me, at last.

The readings at Mass were about the generosity of God in welcoming the sinner into His Church (so unlike the generosity of human beings, which has limits), thereby giving him the same reward as the rest of the People, and there can be no grumbling about it. This is clear in the gospel story at Mass, when Christ suggests to his Jewish audience that new entries into the People of God were imminent and that they would have the same reward as themselves, the Jews, however late they have arrived. We can apply the same idea, I think, to new converts to the Church in our times. God will be abundant in His graces to all His children.

"'And now it was evening, and the owner of the vineyard said to his bailiff, Send for the workmen and pay them their wages, beginning with the last comers and going back to the first. And so the men who were hired about the eleventh hour came forward, and each was paid a silver piece. So that when the others came, who were hired first, they hoped to receive more. But they were paid a silver piece each, like their fellows. And they were indignant with the rich man over their pay. "Here are these late-comers," they said, "who have worked but one hour, and thou hast made no difference between them and us, who have borne the day’s burden and the heat." But he answered one of them thus; "My friend, I am not doing thee a wrong; did we not agree on a silver piece for thy wages? Take what is thy due, and away with thee; it is my pleasure to give as much to this late-comer as thee."'" - Gospel of S. Matthew, 20: 8-14