Father Mark Nolte - Oct 4

St. Philip Catholic Church: Good morning, everybody. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit. Imagine hearing that from the Lord. The kingdom of God, I'm going to take it away from you and give it to somebody else. How would that make you feel? How very good. I'm going to give it to somebody who's going to produce its fruit when. Someone hires an employee, what do they expect from that employee to produce? Or they get right? Expectations. God has expectations for his children. You know, if you plant an apple tree and you nurture it, you cultivate the ground, you do it water, you do everything you can, what do you expect from that apple tree? To give you apples, right? And if it doesn't give you apples, what do you do with the apple tree? Either keep cultivating or eventually cut it down. S driving in the car the other day with my brother and a friend of his in the back seat, and somehow we got off on memories of childhood and our fathers, our dads. And all of us are about the same age, mid sixties, late sixties. You remember the work ethic? I don't know if that's around anymore, but the work ethic of our fathers. They're hard. My dad had expectations for his ten children. He expected things. He expected you to bring it home a good report card. Didn't have to be perfect, but good grades. He expected you to work at it. He expected you to do what he asked you to do. We had responsibility. That's what the God, this parable today, the parable of the vineyard, is much like the parable of the two sons last week. In fact, they bump up against each other. And Jesus is telling us, He's reminding us as Christians, as Catholics, as baptized Christians, we have. Responsibilities. And that we will be held accountable for that at the end of the age. You know, at every baptism we do at the beginning of that baptism, and then later on, the priest or the deacon, whoever's doing the baptism, asks the parents, Do you understand the responsibility you have in bringing this child up in the faith? Do you remember that? How many parents remember that? Not very many. Okay. The church is a and twice the church asks, Do you understand the responsibility you have? There's that word. Of bringing these children up in the faith the best you can. Remember last week Jesus in the parable the the master sends out the father sends out the sons and he says go into the vineyard and work today. The father had expectations for his son. Go into the vineyard and work today. And Jesus today is reminding us of those expectations. And what is this vineyard? What's the vineyard symbolize according to the church? The vineyard is us, the vineyard is our souls. We have a responsibility for our souls and the souls of our children. We will be held accountable for that. And sometimes I wonder if many of our parents. have forgotten their responsibility 'cause so many Catholics, you know, they don't go to church either at all, or maybe they go Christmas and Easter. Maybe they've forgotten their responsibility I don't think they're bad people. I think they just get busy and they get caught up with life and they forget. No, this is the the most important thing is this vineyard. The most important thing you have, parents, is the vineyard, your soul and the souls of your spouse and your children. And Jesus says if you don't take that seriously and you don't produce, it will be taken away from you and given to somebody who will. You ever heard of the saying use it or lose it? Well, you know what he means by that is if I don't practice my faith, if I don't live my faith, you know, if I don't practice the piano, or if I don't practice my jer the German language. Whatever language I'm studying, if I don't practice it, I lose it. That's what he's saying. You we have to live. We have to live and work in the vineyard every day. In other words, we have to work on our spiritual lives. I was at the gym the other day and I was watching people working out and just how hard I'm thinking of myself as I'm watching Maybe I need to quit watching and do work out myself anyway. At least I can say I went to the gym. They have coffee over there. I went to the gym today. but I was just watching I like to watch people. I was watching and I was thinking, I wonder how many of these people here put that much effort in their spiritual lives as they do their the bods, the bodies, right? Which is good. We need to take care of our bodies because St. Paul says our bodies are temples of the We need to take care of our bodies, but I always always think wonder how much If they got up that early in the morning to do their prayer So today's parable is a reminder of the responsibility. You know, my dad gave us responsibilities growing up. He expected us to pull through. Does that mean he was a mean dad? No, he actually was a sign he was a really good dad. He's a good father. And the parable today is also a reminder of the patience of the Father. Now, my dad kind of lacked that a little bit, but he wanted it done, I want it done now. How many of y'all grew up with that? Yeah, get those hands up. All right. Yeah, so the Heavenly Father is perfect Father. He's the perfect Father. He's very patient with us. And so the point of this parable is you know he gives them this vineyard, he gives them a wine press, and he puts a hedge around in a tower. In other words, the parable's teaching us this calling that God's put on this responsibility that God's given us. He also gives us the tools, he equips us to carry that out. He doesn't just leave us to ourselves to figure it out. He gives us the sacraments. That's why we have this Eucharist. His body, blood, so different. He feeds us with his body and blood. To give us the strength to carry out the work in the vineyard. He gives the sacrament of confession. He gives us his very self. He gives us everything we need to cultivate the vineyard. So really the sin of the religious leaders of his day, what he was addressing, the sin he was addressing was the sin of omission, the sin of neglect. And we we can fall into that ourselves too. You know, I can go to mass, which is a good thing. But you see, it's more than just being Catholic is more than just going to church. It's being the church out there. It's like a lot of times I'll say, Hey, are you praying? and I'll say, Well, I to Mass. I said, Okay, that's good, yay. But Do you spend time with him each day in his God's word and meditate and get just converse with get to know him? You know, cultivate this vineyard here. This is the vineyard I have to take care of. Because if I don't then all the weeds and everything start growing up and it gets choked off. That's why I need to go to confession on a regular basis. We have confessions every day here now, did you know that? Except for Sunday. No excuses now. We have it every day. If can't make that time call, we can make an appointment. So today's parable is a reminder of my responsibility, yours, to go out into the vineyard. At the ever at the end of every mass, we say the mass is ended. Go and proclaim the good news. We should say the mass is ended. Now go out and work in the vineyard today. There's somebody out today that needs to know the love of Jesus from you. Somebody today needs a word of encouragement, needs a phone call, a text, something. Somebody out there in the vineyard, there's a soul out there that needs to know the love of Jesus Christ. And that's where you and I come in. Maybe let's look at ourselves and say where am I living w where what part of my life is am I in neglect? Maybe it's my spiritual life. My there's not much of a prayer life there. Maybe I don't go to confession on a regular basis. We have to remember the responsibilities and that we will be held accountable. God God see the Father wants us to produce. Isn't that what every good parent wants? Every good parent wants That child to be the best version of themselves, to do their best. That's a good parent. So the Father's not being hard on us. He's he wants what's best for us, but he's he reminds us that you have to be about the work of the vineyard. So maybe look at or let's look at ourselves this week and ask ourselves: Am I growing? Am I producing? In other words, Is my life producing the fruit, in other words, virtuous? Is my life am I do I see my life growing? Am I growing in virtue? Am I becoming more like Jesus Christ? And it's a process, it doesn't happen overnight. But hopefully we can look at our lives and go, No, I I can look back ten years ago and say, the Lord's you've brought me a long way. You know? So I think we have to look at that and we always have to remind ourselves. of the responsibility we have. We have a tremendous responsibility. You see, we're co-workers with Jesus. We are in the rescue business. Our business is the saving of souls, beginning with myself, my children, my spouse. That's we have to just work with our families. And he's given us everything we need to do that. So just know he's patient, he's merciful, and so I just encourage you to be patient with yourselves and be patient with each other.