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These difficult times demand that we turn back to the beautiful mystery of who God is and what it means to be His cherished children. Listen in to the daily homilies from the Marian Fathers at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, including Fr. Chris Alar, Fr. Kaz Chwalek, and many more. May they help you to live by God’s will that you may play an active and effective role in a world whose wellbeing requires authentic Christian witness!
Before moving to Michigan, when I was very young, we lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. And that was the fandom of the Osmonds. And I loved Donny Osmond. And I watched the Donny and Marie Show. And and Donny Osmond played in a role on I don't know if it's Broadway, but Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, which was the story about what we read in the Fr. Chris reading, the story of Joseph.
Fr.:Now, what is the story of Joseph? He was one of 12 sons of Jacob, and they became the 12 tribes of Israel, each named after 1 of the sons. So you have Judah and Levi and whatnot. So anyway, what happened was basically all of them were going to kill the one innocent one. So, you really had only Reuben step up and say, no, this is wrong.
Fr.:1 out of 12. Judah kind of, because later Judah convinced them not to do it. But the one who stood up was Reuben and said, this is wrong. So, one voice out of a dozen. And it's kind of symbolic of what, percentage wise, you kind of see in our world today, if that at all.
Fr.:One voice out of a dozen that has the courage to speak up. Now, our Lord is telling us what's going to happen in this parable. This is one of the most depressing parables in the Bible and one of the most important. Now, what is Matthew telling us? All right.
Fr.:The Vineyard. This is what. Let's talk about the meaning. And I'm going to share with you what I learned in Seminary. The Vineyard is the nation of Israel.
Fr.:All right. And the owner of the vineyard is God. Okay. So the tenants are the religious leaders of the day, of Israel, in charge of the welfare of the people, the nation or the vineyard. Now, the servants are the messengers who were sent as prophets, like God has been sending us throughout the centuries.
Fr.:Sent by God but rejected. Not listening to the truth, the people. Now, the Son who came last is Jesus Himself. So here is a vivid story where Jesus tells the history and the doom of Israel and for us, too. The similarities are eerie.
Fr.:First of all, what does this tell us about God? This has a lot to tell us about God. First of all, it tells us that God trusts in men. Okay. The owner of the Vineyard or God entrusts it to the tenants.
Fr.:Men. All right. God uses man. All these letters condemning the Catholic Church, the comments on YouTube condemning the Catholic Church. I want nothing to do with men.
Fr.:Well, in a sense, that's an admirable, idea, but it's so misguided. God has used men since the very beginning. He wouldn't talk to the Israelites. He worked through Moses. All right.
Fr.:He founded the nation of Israel through Abraham. All right. So God and Jesus Christ Himself used 12 apostles. He could have come to each individual person, but He didn't. He used 12 apostles to spread the message God uses man.
Fr.:And He does it because like the owner of the Vineyard, He then left them. Jesus ascended to the Father and then left the 12 men to start the Church in His name. They became the priests. That's what the priest is in persona Christi. And he left them with the task without hovering over them.
Fr.:So the men of the church lead and cultivate that vineyard. The owner of the vineyard didn't tell him how to plant the seed, exactly what to do, what fruit to build. He didn't command a micro, or I should say, an oppressive micromanagement of them. He gave them the Vineyard and said, you cultivate it. That's what He did with the Church.
Fr.:All right. So this tells us God has tons of patience. Right? He did not come with vengeance, even when the messengers were ill treated. He had patience and He does with us too.
Fr.:Sometimes I can't believe how patient God is with us. But God puts up with us in all our sinning and always desires us to turn back. All right. So, it says how God is patient, but it also tells of God's judgment. All right.
Fr.:Now, what happened? In the end, the owner had enough and he came and he took the vineyard from the tenants and gave it to others. All right. We know that God came first to Israel. They rejected it.
Fr.:Then it spread into the known world, into the Mediterranean, Northern Africa, into Europe, and it flourished for a while. Then they rejected it. Then it came to America. Then it flourished here for a couple 100 years. Now we're rejecting it.
Fr.:What's God doing? He's taking it away and He's taking it to places like Africa and Asia. And God bless the African bishops that refuse to be controlled and commanded that they will redefine marriage. They refuse to be controlled, to be called abortion is good. They won't do it.
Fr.:This whole idea of of, claiming homosexuality by the US government has to be accepted, or even in some way misunderstandings of the Church to bless the union of homosexuality, the African bishops are saying absolutely not. Right now, that's the Vineyard. And so we have to wake up. So God's sternest judgment is when He takes things, something away from you, the task He has given you that is meant for you and gives it to someone else. I had my morning prayer.
Fr.:I do my morning prayer here in the Shrine, my meditation prior to our Community Morning Prayer. And that was the first thing I meditate by doing Lectio Divina on the daily passage. And and that was the first thing that came to my mind is, Lord, please don't let us Marians shoot ourselves in the foot. Screw up so that You take the message and the task of spreading the message and devotion of divine mercy to the world away from us because we drop the ball. That's the worst punishment you can get, that God takes you away, takes the task that was meant for you.
Fr.:He takes it away. And so, this is a passage that tells us really who God is. You know, He trusts in men. He has infinite patience, but He will He will run out of that patience. Even Jesus said the time of mercy will come to an end and there will be time of judgment.
Fr.:I mean, how much more can we mock God? How much more can he be patient? This whole issue now, like what happened at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Oh my, This was a complete mockery of the liturgy, and and people are telling me it was not a mockery. It was a misunderstanding.
Fr.:That's hogwash. The spokesperson for the whole event said, we hope now our voices has been heard to show the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. We made our political statement. That's a mockery. That's a mockery.
Fr.:And that the liturgy was mocked, The Church was mocked. The Bible was mocked. And in how much is God going to put up with this? How much more before He comes in judgment? We have a chance now to still change.
Fr.:God has been infinitely merciful with us. Now, the same parable tells us a lot about us, about mankind. It tells that we have a lot of privilege and grace. All right. The vineyard, which we live in the world today, is equipped with everything that is needed.
Fr.:The hedge, the winepress, the tower. That's the same with God giving you the grace. What is the grace that you need? The Church. The Church is the vineyard.
Fr.:All right. So, God not only gives us a task to do, but He gives us the means to do it. The grace of the Church. How many people pay no attention to it? Now, it also tells us about human freedom.
Fr.:The owner left the vineyard and left the tenants to do the task however they wanted to do it. We have free will. All right. It's up to you. Do you want to cultivate and bear fruit, grow fruit or, or not?
Fr.:So, this owner is a good manager who gives a task and then trusts the people to do it. So mankind has a lot of freedom, but it also tells a lot about mankind in sin. What do I mean by that? The tenants carried out a deliberate rebellion against the owner. That is what sin is.
Fr.:Sin is a deliberate opposition to God. It's taken our way over God's way. And that's what's happening in the world today. But finally, this passage has a lot to say about Jesus. All right.
Fr.:It tells us who Jesus is, the claim of Jesus. Why? It shows us that the Son of Jesus is distinguished from all the other prophets. The other prophets, the messengers were sent to tell the tenants in the Vineyard, produce your fruit. They killed them.
Fr.:Finally, He says, you know what? I'll send my son. Surely they will listen to Him. They were servants. He is the Son.
Fr.:So He has a special place. So it tells us about Jesus. It also tells us about the sacrifice of Christ, because it makes clear that Jesus knew what lay ahead, that He was going to be killed. But He went willingly. You know what's interesting in this passage?
Fr.:It says they threw him right here. Right here. They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Remember, Jesus was killed outside the walls of Jerusalem. If Jerusalem's like the vineyard, when they crucified Jesus, they threw Him outside.
Fr.:That's where the crucifixion was, just outside the walls of Jerusalem. And so what does all this mean today? How does all this. Okay, let's tie this all together now. Let's bring it all together.
Fr.:So Christ, God has established His Vineyard. What is the Vineyard? The Church. The new Israel. Well, Father, you just said that the vineyard was Israel.
Fr.:Yes. In the Old Testament. Now the vineyard is the church, the new Israel. All right. And He has put it into our hands.
Fr.:I'm not going to listen to men. Well, you might want to, because that's who God assigned to run the vineyard. He gave it to us, the priests and the bishops, and woe to us priests and bishops who don't follow the truth. And so Christ then pays us the complement of entrusting us through our free will with His work. And He did that through the apostles.
Fr.:The apostles were the first tenants, and they pass that down to us priests. Now, He not only gives us a job to do, but He puts the salvation of our friends and relatives also in our hands. That's the fruit of the vineyard. When you go to judgment, God's gonna ask you, did you bear fruit? Well, what do you mean, Lord?
Fr.:What does that mean to bear fruit? Did you bring souls to Me? Did you did you bring souls to Me? And that is what the task that's given. Now, have we done this?
Fr.:Well, many times us Catholics aren't even going to church. Our priests and bishops are leading astray. They're teaching things that could be considered heretical. So what's happening in the vineyard? It's a mess.
Fr.:6 out of 10 don't go to church at all. Fewer go regularly. Half the youth have left. 4 out of 5 of the youth who have left did so by age 23. And less than 30% believe in the real presence of the Eucharist.
Fr.:We are definitely worse than these tenants in the Vineyard because we have all the revelation of Jesus Christ. So Christ started our Church. And this moral compass that used to be the Church, insignificant now. The tenants have completely rejected the prophets. The Church message.
Fr.:Does anybody care what Humana Vitae says about contraception? Does anybody care that it's a tenant in the church that you must attend Mass every Sunday? Does anybody care? Well, if not, we are worse than the tenants of the vineyard. And so this reading says it will be taken away from you and given to someone else who will bear fruit.
Fr.:Again, the worst punishment. And so faith growing in Asia and Africa is that God may be taking it away from us, as He did Israel, as He did Europe, and as now He is doing in America. You know, Saint Faustina told us to pray for our country. This is a time for us to pray no matter what nation you're watching from. Every nation needs prayer, especially us here in the United States.
Fr.:And so let us realize that we can only fail to bear fruit for so long. God has been warning us and warning us and warning us. Even Saint St. Faustina, the great messenger, that you, Saint Faustina, will prepare the world for my final coming. She's kind of like the last of the great prophets, because she is here to announce divine mercy, which God called, Jesus called mankind's last hope of salvation.
Fr.:And that's why we Marian Fathers are doing everything we can to produce fruit in God's vineyard, the Church. And how do we do that? Showing you God's mercy. But remember, Jesus Himself even said, after the time of mercy will come the time of justice. And then it'll be too late.
Fr.:Let us not, not heed that call. Let us heed this call to start bearing fruit in the vineyard.