Dear Parish Family,

One of my favorite meditations from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius is that of the Two Standards. St. Ignatius has us reflect on the Standard of Satan with demons tempting us to seek worldly riches, honor, and pride, and then on the Standard of Christ with angels and saints encouraging us to seek poverty over riches, insults over honor, and humility over pride. We then must pray for God's grace to help us, and then choose which Kingdom's Standard we will follow. 

Today's Gospel of the hiring of the laborers in the vineyard reminds me a lot about this choice to follow the Standard of Christ in poverty, contempt, and humility. There are those who work all day for the usual daily wage getting paid exactly the same as those who only worked for one hour. The Master's ordering of paying the last first and the first last is also intentional. We aren't given the reasons why the Master is so generous to those who came last, or the specific details of why the last stood idle all day other than their own reasoning that "no one has hired us" even though the Master has made rounds in the market for workers multiple times. 

From an economical point of view, the Master's actions seem unfair. Yet when we reflect on the Standard of Christ and the spiritual meaning of this parable, we see more than anything that working with and for Christ will entail a certain unfairness by the world's standards. Remember, worldly riches and honor that lead to pride are offered by the Standard of Satan. Christ Himself accepts complete poverty, contempt, and humility for our sake and asks us to follow Him. He has always and already offered more and has worked longer and harder for our salvation than we ever could. Complaining that we deserve more for what we've offered loses all its weight when compared to the total self-offering of Christ. 

On a more basic level, the first laborers from daybreak forget the best part about the joy of working in God's vineyard. If anything, they should rejoice that those who only worked an hour received a chance to experience following Jesus, and praise God for His generosity in welcoming them at the last hour. This issue was very real in the early Church as some of the Jewish-born followers of Jesus thought they were entitled to more grace than the Gentile converts. We may also experience a bit of this jealousy when we see someone new to the faith who once lived a wicked lifestyle now being filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit and responding to God in the most generous way. Praise God! Jesus reminds all of us that we have chosen to serve under the same Standard of Christ, and we should serve joyfully and with sincere love for one another and the generous and merciful love that God bestows upon His Church!

I hope you all have a chance to enjoy the St. Mary Parish Oktoberfest this Sunday! Bishop Malesic is celebrating our noon Polka Mass with us under the tent, and our Oktoberfest festivities will take place from 1-7 PM. There will be lots of food, fun, and games for all ages.  Oktoberfest will still happen rain or shine! If we experience inclement weather, we will move the Mass into the church and the Oktoberfest events inside.

I am yours in Christ,

Fr. Scott Goodfellow