Saint of the day : Saint Jean Eudes 19 August
Gospel Reading :Matthew 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.
Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’
But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’
So the last will be first, and the first last.”
What do the Fathers say?
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. The Master of the household is Christ, whose house are the heavens and the earth; and the creatures of the heavens, and the earth, and beneath the earth are His family.
His vineyard is righteousness, in which are set divers sorts of righteousness as vines, such as meekness, chastity, patience, and the other virtues; all of which are called by one common name righteousness. Men are the cultivators of this vineyard, For God placed His righteousness in our senses, not for His own but for our benefit.
Know then that we are the hired labourers. And just as the hired labourer looks first to his task, and after to his daily food, so ought we to mind first those things which concern the glory of God, then those which concern our own benefit.
Also as the hired labourer occupies the whole day in his Lord’s work, and takes but a single hour for his own meal; so ought we to occupy our whole life in the glory of God, taking but a very small portion of it for the uses of this world.
And as the hired labourer when he has done no work is ashamed that day to enter the house, and ask for his food; should you not be ashamed to enter the church, and stand before the face of God, when you have done nothing good in the sight of God?
Pope St GREGORY the Great. Or; The Master of the household, that is, our Maker, has a vineyard, that is, the Church universal, which has borne so much fruit, as many saints as it has put forth from righteous Abel to the very last saint who shall be born in the end of the world.
To instruct this His people as regards the dressing of a vineyard, the Lord has never ceased to send out His labourers; first by the Patriarchs, next by the teachers of the Law, then by the Prophets, and at the last by the Apostles, He has toiled in the cultivation of His vineyard; though every man, in whatsoever measure or degree he has joined good action with right faith, has been a labourer in the vineyard.
ORIGEN. For the whole of this present life may be called one day, long to us, short compared to the existence of God.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from :
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
Artwork ex Wikimedia Commons