If Jesus’ parable today (Matt 20:1-16) were about employment and wages, we would be perplexed as those who clock in late, even as late as the last hour, get the same wage as those who clocked in at dawn. But Jesus’ parable is not about employment and wages; he uses the example of employment and wages to teach about the kingdom of God—that it is never too late to respond to God. In the parable, no matter how late in the day someone works in the vineyard, the wage is the same: life with God. There is always a welcome from God, a welcome from Jesus, no matter how late in life we allow God into our lives.
The landowner went out to hire labourers five times: at dawn, at about nine o’clock (the third hour in Matthew’s Greek; twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night, see John 11:9), at noon (the sixth hour in Matthew’s Greek), at three o’clock (the ninth hour in Matthew’s Greek) and about five o’clock (the eleventh hour in Matthew’s Greek). The parable shows us that God is merciful and welcoming, no matter how late we accept the invitation to allow God into our lives. That is also what we see in the lives of those who became Catholic and found Jesus at different times during their lives (including me!).
Most of you are those who were hired to work in the vineyard at dawn because growing up in this part of the world, you were baptized a short time after birth and have been following Jesus since then. Elsewhere in the world (except for people like me) you would be described as “cradle Catholics,” Catholics since infancy, to distinguish you from the many converts to Catholicism later in life.
At nine o’clock (the third hour) the landowner went out again to hire for his vineyard. This is like those who met Jesus early in life though not as early as infancy. One example is Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. The family became Catholic when Tolkien was eight years old. His mother was a huge influence on his Catholic faith. He wrote, “it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary [his brother] and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith.” (H. Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: Autobiography p39)
At noon (the sixth hour) the landowner went out again to hire workers for his vineyard. Edith Stein was raised in the Jewish faith but in the summer of 1921, she read the autobiography of St. Teresa of Ávila and said, “That is the truth” and was baptized and became Catholic on January 1, 1922, at the age of thirty. She later entered the Carmelite order taking the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and in August 1942 was sent to Auschwitz and killed seven days later. (L. Hanley Duquin, A Century of Catholic Converts p59-60)
At around 3 o’clock (the ninth hour) the landowner went out again to hire workers for his vineyard. G.K. Chesterton, the British journalist, lecturer, and author wrote many books and articles. In 1911, the family was surprised, to say the least, when his brother Cecil became Catholic. Chesterton had been leaning in that direction also but was holding off due to his wife. He and his wife went to the Holy Land and returned via Rome and in 1922 Chesterton decided he could wait no longer and became Catholic at the age of forty-eight.
Finally in the parable, at around five o’clock (the eleventh hour) the landowner went out again to hire workers for his vineyard. Some people became Catholic at the end of life or even in their deathbed. At the age of 70, the American actor John Wayne, well-known for his role in Western movies (and whose real first name was Marion), converted to Catholicism. There has been speculation for years that George Washington became a Catholic shortly before he died because he had a picture of Our Lady.
Then in 2010 The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in this country by Pope Benedict XVI which allowed Anglicans to come into full communion with the Pope and the Catholic Church, whilst retaining some of their Anglican traditions and liturgy – and that did include me! The Ordinariate receives people into the Catholic Church from all different back grounds, circumstances in life and from different age groups.
In all these examples, we see the landowner, Jesus, going out at all hours of the day to call people into his kingdom. There is another one we could think of: Saint Paul. In his late thirties, after witnessing the killing of the first martyr, St. Stephen, he was going to Damascus to arrest and terrorize Christians there when he met Jesus on the road and he too entered the Lord’s vineyard to labour in it. It became a labour of love for him as we heard him write in our second reading, “For to me life is Christ.” (Phil 1:22) After his conversion his whole life revolved around Jesus. That explains why twice elsewhere in his letters he encourages us to have the same mind as Jesus, to think like Jesus (Phil 2:5; 1 Cor 2:16) It is a lifelong task for us, as we convert more and more, to have the same mind as Jesus, to think like Jesus. So although we answered the Lord’s call to labour in his vineyard at dawn, even at the last hour, we are still clocking in and learning what answering the Lord’s call to us means.
It is good that God is merciful, merciful even if we clock in late, because we are all still learning what it means to properly answer the invitation to work in the Lord’s vineyard. But we know one thing: it is never too late to respond to God. There is always a welcome from God, from Jesus, no matter how late in life we allow God into our lives. Pray that more and more of our brothers and sisters will join us in the Catholic faith and church; to be part of the Church founded by Jesus Christ.
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