20/09/2026
๐ ๐๐๐๐ฆ | ๐๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ด๐ฒ๐น๐ถ๐ถ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐บ
20 September 2026 | Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16
๐ฌ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐:
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 2013, the call to holiness is a vocation that every Christian is responding to. As human beings, we have a natural inclination to the Divine. We are infinitely longing that God can only satisfy. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, this is the telos of every human being โ to be in communion with God. In our Gospel for today, Jesus narrates how He continuously invites everyone to His vineyard. This invitation is not only for working, but actually to be with him. We have a usual wage for a common vocation, that is, eternal life.
Satisfaction is defined as the fulfilment of a desire or the feeling of having the wants. The workers in the Gospel who grudged against the landlord could only be satisfied with the material good โ money. They give too much importance to money which they can have in exchange for their services.
By measuring their worth strictly through coins and hours spent under the hot sun, the first-hired workers reduced a profound personal relationship with the landlord into a mere transaction. They expected a higher financial payout simply because they compared their efforts to those who came later. In doing so, their eyes were blinded to the true treasure staring right at them: the privilege of working side-by-side with the Master in His vineyard, and the guarantee of a generous wage that ensures their ultimate survival and joy.
This transactional mindset mirrors our modern spiritual struggle. We often trap ourselves in spiritual math, keeping score of our devotions, good deeds, and years of faithful service, demanding that God should reward us according to our own metric of fairness. We mistake God's boundless grace for earthly compensation, risking resentment when we see latecomers receive the exact, same mercy we were promised of.
True satisfaction cannot be bought with denarii or earned through bitter comparison. The late hour at which someone enters the vineyard does not diminish the grace extended to them, nor does it cheapen the grace given to those called at dawn. The ultimate reward is not an external commodity we receive from God; it is God Himself. When we finally stop calculating what we are "owed" and open our hearts to the Master's radical generosity, our envy will be dissolved into gratitude. We realize that being called into the vineyard at any hour is not a burden to endure, but a mercy to celebrate.
Sem. Allan Jay P. Cristobal
Discipleship IV
Diocese of Laoag
