25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
September 24, 2023

My brothers and sisters in Christ:¹

As we know, for these last several weeks in our Gospels, the Lord has been teaching us in parables about the Kingdom of God.

And today he tells us: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.”

So Jesus is telling us today that he has created this world to be like a vineyard. And each of us is called to work in this vineyard, to carry out the mission of bringing his love into every area of life, to work for the great harvest of souls who will know Jesus and his love and will inherit the kingdom of heaven. 

And as we heard, Jesus describes himself as the man who owns the vineyard. And, at different times in the day he goes out in the marketplace and hires people to do work in his vineyard.

When the day is done and it is evening, all the workers line up to receive their wages. And, as we heard, he gave all of them the same daily wage.

So I was saying, in this parable, the landowner stands for Jesus, the laborers are every man and woman — they are you and me, all of us. Some of us who became believers early in our life, some of us who came to Jesus later in life.

Now, “the day” that Jesus is talking about is both our personal lifetime and also the lifetime of the world, until Jesus comes again.

And the daily wage that the landowner promises stands for eternal life. The joy of God’s kingdom. God gives this gift to everyone who serves him, no matter when they were called and what they were called to do in his vineyard. 

So the Lord is telling us, today once again, that he has called each one of us, personally, to do that work in his vineyard, growing his kingdom on earth. And if we dedicate our lives to the service of God and the service of our brothers and sisters, God is going to reward us in an unbelievable way.

Then, it’s very interesting, as we heard, that in the middle of the parable, the vineyard owner gets impatient. He finds some people standing around and he asks them, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” And then he sends them out into the vineyard.

So, he doesn’t like people just standing around Everyone has a place, everyone has a purpose in his vineyard. So my brothers and sisters, this is a message again, for you and me, for each one of us.

We are here on earth for a reason. God wants each of us to make our own contribution to building his kingdom. We have different contributions that we can make. But God has a plan and a purpose for each of us.

So, obviously the question for all of us today is, what is my job in the vineyard? How is God calling us, each one of us, to help grow his family, his kingdom?

I think for most of us the answer is that our personal “vineyard” is our home, our family, the places where we work, school. Our activities in our community. This is where we serve God, this is where we help one another get to heaven.

And the prophet Isaiah says in the first reading: “Seek the Lord where he may be found, call him when he is near.”

Jesus is always with us, working alongside us in the vineyard. So we need to keep our eyes open, keep our hearts open to love him and we will find many ways to serve him everyday.

Really our lives are called to be lives of service and love. Love is the way we are called to live.

And St. Paul says today in the second reading: “For me, life is Christ.” It is a wonderful way to live — giving glory to Jesus in everything we do. I hope that we pray and reflect on how important it is for us to center our life in our Lord Jesus Christ, just as St. Paul did. For me, life is Christ.

So my brothers and sisters, this is what we do in the vineyard. We need to share in every situation — sharing Jesus’ beautiful vision for society, his beautiful understanding of the dignity of the human person.

And yes, there is a lot of work to be done. And there is no time to waste, no time to be ideal.

We need to make our world better, more like God wants it to be. And this our beautiful vocation, our beautiful work, to share the love of Jesus and to build his kingdom.

One of the saints said: “All days are good, for serving God. … Our lives are so very short. Yesterday has gone and today is passing by. But what a great deal can be done for the love of God in this short space of time!”²

That is so true! There is so much good that we can do in every moment of our lives.

So as we begin this new week, let us dedicate especially ourselves once again to working in the Lord’s vineyard, glorifying Jesus with our lives and spreading his love and peace in the world.

And I just also wanted to share, as many of you know, on Tuesday, here in this Cathedral I will have the privilege to ordain four fine men to be new auxiliary bishops for the family of God here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. So please keep them in your prayers at this beautiful time in the life of our archdiocese.

Let’s keep asking for that grace to understand the beauty of our life centered in our Lord Jesus Christ and our mission to bring the love and presence of Jesus to the people of our time.

And may Holy Mary our Blessed Mother continue to go with all of us, and help us to love her Son more and more and build his kingdom.