Late to the Vineyard

+JMJ+

We all remember Jesus’s parable of the laborers in the vineyard, recounted in Matthew 20:1-16. A landowner hires workers for the day and they agree to work for one denarius, but several times later during the day, he found other workers idle in the marketplace and invited them to come and work too. 

At the end of the day, he called them together, paying the ones hired last, first--and going on up the line, ending with the ones who had come early in the morning and worked the longest. But, to everyone’s surprise, the landowner paid the same amount to each of them, even though some had worked all day, while others, only an hour!

Some of the ones who had come early grumbled about this, because they expected to be paid more, to which the landowner replied, “‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

In this story, I am the worker who was hired at 5:00pm, and the Sisters already in the Community are the workers who have labored in the vineyard of religious life all day--and yet, God in His incredible generosity, has given me the same reward as He gave them: the opportunity to offer Him my entire life, to give Him everything--to live out my vocation as a Sister of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kansas.

I am blessed beyond measure by this unbelievably generous gift, and I am deeply grateful. May God grant that I will be allowed to make my Profession this coming Fall. +