Sermon, Septuagesima Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013

Septuagesima Sunday – Jan. 27, 2013

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27, 10, 1-5             Gospel: Matthew 20: 1-16

Today we begin Septuagesima Season. In the liturgical seasons of the Church this is the time to prepare ourselves for Lent and following Lent, for the joy of Easter. Now is the season for us to get a clear understanding of the misery of our banishment from the Garden of Eden.

The Householder in today’s Gospel is of course God. His vineyard is the Church. He sends out workers to his vineyard at all hours, and never ceases to send them out; from the beginning it was the Patriarchs and Teachers of the Law, and lastly the Apostles and their successors. The workers of the early morning and the third, sixth and ninth hours “signify the Jewish people, who . . . have from the beginning of the world endeavored to serve God . . . But at the eleventh hour the Gentiles were called, and it is to them it was said: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’”

Consider what they answered: “Because no man hath hired us.” What does this mean except that no man has preached to us the way of true life?  What if at our judgment Our Lord asks, “Why did you stand idle?” We are members of His Church, some of us since the cradle. We don’t have the same excuse as those men in the Gospel. We can’t say “no man hath hired us,” because we have been hired, we have been called to work in our Lord’s Vineyard.

Christ’s parable today seems to be directed to those who have followed Him since their youth as well as to those who are late converts – directed to cradle Catholics so they won’t become proud and scornful of the later converts, and to them, so they will know that it is possible to earn the whole day’s wages, which is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Vineyard is God’s, of course, and Pope St. Gregory points out that at no time has God failed to send workers into His Vineyard.  First the Patriarchs, then the Doctors of the Law and the Prophets, and now His Apostles and their successors, and the faithful. The natural state of our hearts, as God made them, is to love our neighbor, to rejoice with our neighbors when they are joyful, and to be sad when they are sorrowful. When we feel sadness or resentment at the happiness of others, then we are being envious. The workers who were called early to the vineyard were envious of those who were called at the last hour because they received the same wages. “Is thy eye evil because I am good?” our Lord said to them.

Today’s Gospel is also a message to the Jews of Christ’s time that salvation is about to be offered to the Gentiles, that the Law of Moses will give way to the Christian Law through the preaching of the Apostles. Dom Guéranger points this out: “By the selfish murmuring made against the master of the house by the early laborers, our Lord signifies the indignation which the scribes and Pharisees would show at the Gentiles being adopted as God’s children. He shows them how their jealousy would be chastised: Israel, that had labored before us, shall be rejected for their obduracy [hardness] of heart, and we Gentiles, the last comers, shall be made first, for we shall be made members of that Catholic Church, which is the bride of the Son of God.” This is the interpretation given by Sts. Augustine and Pope St. Gregory the Great and others, but it also contains within it the second instruction, and that is that God invites each of us individually and personally to labor in His Vineyard for the promised payment.

These hours in the parable can also be seen as the years of our lives. Morning is the childhood of our reason. The third hour, adolescence, because while the heat and energy of youth increases, it is as though the sun mounts higher in the sky. The sixth hour is young manhood and womanhood, because the sun is now at its zenith when we are at our full strength. The ninth hour is our mature age because as the sun now declines so does the heat and energy of youth. The eleventh hour is our old age. Some are called to our good life in their young years, others in adulthood, others  in maturity and still others in old age. Laborers are called at different hours to the Vineyard. We should all look to our manner of living then to see if we are really laboring the Vineyard of the Lord. Those who live for themselves and feed on the pleasures of the world are truly idle because they do not work for the fruit of divine labor. That fruit is heaven.  It is good to remind ourselves, also, that God does not promise us a second calling if we do not answer the first.

 St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians today speaks of our lives as a race, that we should run to  win, and the prize we seek is the incorruptible crown of eternal life with God. Paul was aware that he might lose this race, so he chastised his body and kept it in subjection to the spirit. We have an inclination to sin. It is an effect of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve and defines the human condition, that is, it’s part of what we are. Our only means of winning the race is to subject our bodies to the spirit. This is a very harsh doctrine because we know that it is difficult, to say the least, to make an impression on those whose happiness is fixed only on the things of this present life. “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1: 2) But for these people, we pray.

It’s easy for us to become indifferent to praying and to the liturgy of the Church.  Liturgy means the way we worship God, in a certain order and in certain forms given to us by Jesus and His Church.  It’s also easy to become indifferent to the rules of the Church regarding fasting and attending Mass.  Before the fall of our first parents we could walk and talk with God, but now we have to fight the devil all our lives to get to see God at the end.  So use these days before Easter to develop habits of holiness by praying, fasting, going to Confession and by attending Mass and receiving Communion as often as possible, but always on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. The Church and Her priests are here to show you the way to heaven.  +++

Do not let His Blood fall uselessly on your soul.

(Dom Guéranger)

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass