This Week
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
20/9/2026
September is the month of Our Lady of Sorrows
AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR
Dear friends,
It is a great pleasure to welcome Fr Ignatius CSSp to the parish this weekend. Father is a Spiritan Priest (The Congregation of the Holy Spirit) and he has come to appeal for our support with the many good works carried out by the Spiritans, both in this country and farther afield. Here in the UK, the Spiritans are involved in parish ministry, and also in prisons, airports, schools and amongst migrants. They are also busy at work in missions in the Philippines, Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia, and elsewhere. I am sure Father will tell us about their good work. He will also ask us to pray for their mission and for vocations to their Congregation in general. Welcome to you, Father.
In the Gospel set for this Sunday we meet the workers in the vineyard. There are some who bear the burden of the day in the scorching heat whilst others do not. When it comes to the time for payment, they receive the same wage as those hired at the eleventh hour. This does not please them at all. They grumble at the sheer injustice of it. They sound all too familiar, don’t they?
This is not, I think, a parable about fair and just wages and workers relations, as important as these issues are. The point of this parable is simple and sharp. We all have been commissioned, in and through our common baptism, to work in the vineyard. The Lord (the master of the vineyard) is ever generous and eager to use us all for the building up of his kingdom here on earth. We are to accept the calling we have received, and to be very careful not to compare what we are doing, and what we have, with what others may appear to have been entrusted with.
True gratitude, genuine kindness and real generosity are Christian virtues. When we act in these ways we begin to resemble our heavenly Father, the Master of the Vineyard. And we are all the better for that.
With all good wishes,
Father Daniel
Readings at Mass Today
First Reading
Psalm
Second Reading
Gospel
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