Stripped of Consolation

​A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, September 24th, 2023:
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Matthew
​20.1-16

Jesus spoke this parable to his disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.

“Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 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 the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

​Pause. Pray. Reflect.

The brilliant, “mic drop” quote of the landowner in this parable stands on its own: “Are you envious because I am generous?” 

Jesus convicts me as only God can.

Like the vineyard workers, I can find myself grumbling against God – as if I deserve more than anyone else. But I don’t think I actually believe that. If I dig a little deeper, I think I feel this way because I need reassurance. I would like to believe that I am special, and in some ways this drives my desire for Him. Of course, I need reassurance that I am indeed special and loved, and I can turn my gratitude for His love into service to others. But like everything, this can be distorted and turned into a more transactional and human way of thinking; I get consoled by God as I follow Him. Perhaps this is why it can be difficult to stay on task – difficult to pray, difficult to fast, difficult to be obedient – especially when I don’t necessarily receive answers, see results, or bear immediate fruit. 

The landowner’s one-line challenge to the workers reminded me of some things I have heard about Saint Mother Teresa and the way she would respond to people and their questions with simple, wise, and convicting statements. So I spent some time reading about her, and I found a piece about her life on a website called “My Catholic Life.”

There, I came across this quote in the section describing her many years of the so-called “dark night of the soul” where she did not feel God’s presence in her life at all. The author writes: “God stripped her of every interior consolation so that her charity would be absolutely pure and devoid of all selfish motivation, resulting in pure selfless giving, fueled by unshakable faith, and driven by divine hope.” (1)

Although this statement is not referenced and could arguably be dismissed as conjecture on the part of the author, it put into words for me the same sense that was left by the parable’s landowner in the Gospel. It can be difficult at times to discern whether what I do is purely out of love for God and to what degree it is tainted by selfishness.  

The life of Saint Mother Teresa convicts me just as the words of Jesus to the disciples do. 

Let it be so with all our lives!

“Mother, you are seventy! When you die, the world will be as it was before. What has changed after so much effort?” Mother Teresa could have reacted with a little holy indignation, instead she smiled brightly, as if they had kissed her affectionately. And she added: “Well, I never thought I would be able to change the world! I have only tried to be a drop of clean water in which God's love could sparkle. Does that seem little?” (2)

​(1) https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/september-5-saint-mother-teresa-calcutta/
(2) https://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ju_mag_01091997_p-18_en.html



Lindsay Elford

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