Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus gives us the parable of the Talents. In it, the Master praises and rewards the servants who make a return on their Master's gift. But they are praised not because they have been "successful", but rather because they responded with faithfulness to their Master. In fact, their success is their fidelity. May we, too, respond with fidelity to all of the grace and spiritual gifts that God is giving us!

In the Gospel for this 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, we have the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. While the foolish ones were trying to buy more oil for their lamps, the Bridegroom arrives and "those who were ready", i.e. the wise ones, were able to go into the feast with him. What does it mean for us to be ready to meet the Lord when he comes? How does God get us ready?

In today's Gospel we hear Jesus say, "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one father in heaven." In this homily, we explore what the literal meaning of Jesus is, and then we examine the spiritual meaning using a famous scene from the life of St. Francis of Assisi.

Reflection from our first Eucharistic Revival “Encounter” night.

Talk given at COR Men’s Night: 5-17-23

In today's Gospel Jesus tells the parable of the wedding feast. Throughout the Scriptures this image of marriage is used to describe the relationship between God and Israel, which will finally be fulfilled in heaven. But even now, we have the Mass, which is our foretaste and present participation in heaven. As Jesus gives his Body to his Bride, the Church, He desires an intimate union with us for which the best analogy is the union between bridegroom and bride. This is truly Good News!

After three straight weeks of Jesus telling parables featuring a vineyard and its landowner, we have to explore why vineyards, vines, and wine appear all over the Scriptures from the Old Testament to the New Testament. What are the spiritual lessons that the Lord is trying to teach us?

In today's Gospel, as well as the one from last week, we see through the parables Jesus tells that God is inviting into his Kingdom those we would least expect him to invite. Last week we saw how the landowner didn't just want the responsible and industrious laborers who showed up at dawn. He also wanted the ones who didn't roll out of bed until noon or bother to make themselves useful under the end of the day. Today we see how both the religious leaders are invited in the Kingdom (although the refuse) as well as the ones we would least expect: public sinners like prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors. Jesus tells the chief priests that the prostitutes are going to heaven before them! How wonderful it is that Jesus wants to include all in his Kingdom, including those who seem, at least on the outside, the least disposed to it. And how astonished these reformed sinners must feel by God's love and choice of them. May our Church embody this radical inclusion of Jesus, which calls all to experience God's magnificent love and leave behind our former lives of sin.

Hearing today's Gospel, we might feel some injustice as those who worked for ten hours in the vineyard receive the same recompense as only an hour. What amazes me, however, is that the landowner is relentless in his search for workers, which yields both responsible ones who are ready to work at dawn and lazy ones who don't bother to get out of bed most of the day. Obviously the quality of work will be affected. Yet, we learn something about God from this: God loves all of his children and wants all of his children with him in his kingdom and is relentless in his search -- going out at six and nine and noon and three and five -- to track down every one.

In our Sunday readings over the past month or so we've heard Jesus talk about the church a couple times, which is significant, because they are the only two times that Jesus uses the word "church" in all four Gospels. Zooming out of our readings, he gives us a vision of what he desires his church to be: A Church in which we take responsibility for the material and spiritual needs of its members. A Church in which we are willing to have difficult conversations with each other so long as we do so out of love with the commitment of accompanying each other as we grow in holiness. A Church of mercy, non-violence, and forgiveness. May we accept the grace to be the Church Jesus wants us to be!