Deacon Ed Shoener, 
Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Today’s readings ask us to consider the mystery of God’s ways.

“By ways known to Him alone, God can provide the opportunity for repentance”

That is from the Catechism. It may surprise you what situation it is referring to.  Later, I will get back to it.

But to fully understand it we first need to reflect on the story that Christ tells in the Gospel.  On the surface, it is a mysterious story. How can people who worked one hour get paid the same as someone who worked hard all day in the vineyard? 

It grabs our attention because it seems unfair, but it makes a spiritual point – God is so merciful and generous that he will give eternal life to anyone who repents and asks Him for eternal life – no matter when you ask.  It is never too late.

This story has been viewed in several ways. 

One way is to remind us that there is always hope for conversion. In the early Church, there was the great debate about letting Gentiles, non-Jews, into the Church.  Should the Gentiles be treated the same?  The answer was yes – God welcomes people into His Church no matter when they come.

It is still true today, if someone you love has no faith, or has fallen away from faith, never give up hope.  Christ hasn’t. They will always be welcome in the Church.

A second way is to look at our own lives.  You know, for many reasons I am glad I have been given the opportunity to live into my sixties, and perhaps longer.  Chief among them is that it has given me the chance to draw closer to God, despite my shortcomings earlier in life.

St. Gregory the Great, who lived over a thousand years ago, in a homily on this Gospel, spoke about growing older in a blunt way that we don’t often hear today: “Even though you have not been willing to live for God in your childhood and young adulthood, at least come to your right mind in the final time of your life.  Come to the ways of life, even though you will not labor much now, and are late”.

A good thing to ponder isn’t it? 

How much of our life do we spend seeking our own will, working in our own vineyard so to speak, rather than discerning the will of God?

We live in a time and a culture where we are incessantly told we can do what we want, pursue self-satisfaction, to self-identify in all sorts of disordered ways. And as a result, we spend so much of our time in our own vineyard, outside the vineyard Christ is talking about in this story, outside of the Kingdom of God. 

But St. Gregory reminds us we are never too old to change our ways. There is still hope for those of us with grey hair!

A third way to look at this story is to remember how Jesus gives special attention to those on the margins of society, the so-called “tax collectors and sinners”. He calls them throughout the day in this story, in the morning, noon and at evening, and is generous when they respond. As Pope Francis says: "The church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners." We should always be reaching out and inviting those on the margins into the Church.

And finally, to get back to my opening question.  Where in the Catechism is the teaching “By ways known to Him alone, God can provide the opportunity for repentance.”  It is in the section talking about suicide.

September is suicide awareness month. All month in the intercessory prayers we have been praying for those who live with mental illness, perhaps struggle with suicidal thoughts and those of us who grieve the loss of a loved one to suicide.  Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in this country and the second leading cause of death for young people under the age of 35.  It is an all too common way to die.

We find it hard to talk about suicide. This is in part because not too long ago the Church would deny a funeral to people who died by suicide and would not bury them in Catholic cemeteries. The stigma is real, it is harmful, and all too often it is a reason why people living with a mental illness or suicidal thought are too filled with shame to seek help.

But with a better understanding of psychology and mental illness, the Church now teaches that even for those people who in the depths of depression and despair die by suicide, there is still hope and mercy, even if we don’t understand how this could be – “by ways known to Him alone, God can provide the opportunity for repentance”

So, God’s mercy is beyond all understanding. It is never too late – for a non-believer, for someone who has fallen away from the faith, for those of us just now finding our calling, for those who died in the despair of suicide.

Turn to the Lord for mercy, to our God who is generous and forgiving. 

Never lose hope.  Amen.