At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a master of a family, who went early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing in the market-place idle. And he said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just. And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: Why stand you here all the day idle? They say to him: Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them: Go you also into my vineyard. And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first. When, therefore, they came, who had come about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should have received more, and they also received every man a penny. And when they received it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying: These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats. But he answering one of them, said: Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine and go thy way: I will also give to this last even as to thee. Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? is thy eye evil because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last, For many are called, but few chosen.
Sermon XXXII.
Why stand ye here all the day idle?
—St. Matthew xx. 6.
This life, my dear friends, is often spoken of in Scripture as a day, both on account of its shortness and because the night of death follows. Now, there are certainly many persons who do stand all their lives idle; that is to say, they do not try to "work out their own salvation"; they do not try to do anything in the Lord's vineyard, the church, by helping forward good works either by their means or by their active service. There are a great number of men and women who never think of caring for the great business of their salvation. Day after day goes by, week after week, and they have done no good works, corrected no faults, made absolutely no advancement or improvement. It is too much trouble for them to examine their consciences, too tiresome to stir themselves to go to Mass and the sacraments. They have sunk into a state of spiritual drowsiness by the world's fireside; in a word, they are all the day idle. Oh! if there are any such here, let them take warning. For the night will surely come, and then it will be too late. Perhaps this is the eleventh hour for you. God has called you often before; now, by the voice of his priest, he speaks once more and says: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" To-day you see again the purple vestments and hangings; they tell you that Lent is fast approaching, that a time of grace is coming round once more. Oh! then, you that have yet a few hours of the day of life left, go into the vineyard of your own souls, root up the weeds, till the soil, plant good seed, that the Father of all may be able in the end to give you the wages of everlasting life.
Again, such among you as have means, or who are able to help your pastor by active service in the charge of the sick and the poor, who can teach the uninstructed, help along in sewing-schools and in forming sodalities and pious organizations of various kinds—to you also the cry comes, "Why stand ye all the day idle?" Why, when called upon to bear a little part of the priest's burden, are so many people like an old gun that hangs fire? Why is it often so difficult for the priest to get the active co-operation of the lay people? Why does he so often get the "cold shoulder" as people say, when he asks a little help? Is it not because people won't go into the vineyard, won't work, won't take trouble? Because they would rather not be bothered? How often they say: "I have no time"; "What are the priests for, anyhow?" "Let them look after these things." Thus they stand all the day idle, and the hard work falls on the priests and just a few self-sacrificing helpers. When you are called on, then, by your pastors to help in the parish, "don't be backward in coming forward"; make up your minds that you will not stand idle, but that it shall be "a long pull and a strong pull, and a pull all together."
Why should we be so afraid of idleness in spiritual things and in works of charity? Because, my dear friends, the time is short. Life is passing swiftly. The night of death is at hand. Soon the cry will be heard: "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to meet him." Soon the Master of the vineyard will come and look at our work. Woe to us if he finds that we either never went into the vineyard at all, or, at best, the work there was so ill done that our part of the land is choked with docks and darnels and every kind of weed! You know, doubtless, that people sometimes give to each of their children a little garden to plant; ah! how these children try to make "my garden" the best one. How careful they are of it, how grieved if the frost or some noxious insect should destroy the flowers or fruits! We are all children; God has given us each a little garden, a little piece of his great vineyard, to care and tend. Let us, then, like the little ones, try to make our garden the finest, that when our Father, God, and our dear Mother, Mary, come to look at it they may find it full of beauty and fragrance, and say concerning us: "This one, at least, did not stand all the day idle."
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.