The parable in today’s Gospel can be viewed in more than one way. In one sense, those hired toward the end of the day can be the Gentiles, who are grafted into God’s people later in salvation history.
In another sense, understood within the Church, the faithful cradle Catholics are those who have labored all their lives for the Lord and yet become indignant to those who enter the Church later in life, failing to see that the “usual wage” is, in fact, God’s gift of eternal salvation, a gift which even the greatest of saints could not attain on his own.
The Older Son
In this light, those who have labored faithfully their whole life long are shown to have, sadly, character defects, much like the older son in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). The older son had never abandoned his father like his younger brother had, and yet he fails to see that mercy and reconciliation are at the heart of the Father’s plan.
Consequently, we should truly rejoice every year when Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ come into full communion with the Church, as well as regarding those who are baptized and have their sins washed away for the first time.
We have benefited from God’s mercy and thus we should joyfully join him in being ambassadors of his mercy (see 2 Cor. 5:17-21).
More
Finally, if we have long been Christ’s disciples, we should have more for which to be thankful—and thus more also to show in terms of growth in holiness in receiving the sacraments and otherwise walking with the Lord these many years. And, therefore, we should be mindful of our greater responsibility as Christ’s disciples, instead of stumbling over the Lord’s mercy toward those who enter the Church “at the eleventh hour.”
[Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9;Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a;Matthew 20:1-16a]
