'Everything is mercy, believe me.' Sunday Reflections, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Johann Christian Brand [Wikipedia]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Matthew 20:1-16 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

Jesus said to his disciples:

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market-place, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the labourers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house,  saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”

The Grape-Picker

Bernhard Keil [Web Gallery of Art]

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Jacques Fesch - A Murderer's Conversion

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) is one of the top soccer teams in Europe. It gets its name from the suburb of Paris where it is located, Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It is also the birthplace on 6 April 1930 of Jacques Fesch. He died on 1 October 1957 in Paris. In 1987 Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, opened a diocesan inquiry into the life of Jacques and in 1993 formally opened the process for his beatification. 

Jean-Baptiste Vergne

This caused considerable controversy in France because Jacques Fesch had been executed by guillotine for the murder of Jean-Baptiste Vergne, 35, a widowed policeman and father of a daughter aged 4, on 25 February 1954. There was no doubt whatever of Jacques Fesch's guilt nor did he show any remorse at his trial or after being sentenced.

How did this man come to be proposed for beatification by a French cardinal who was born Jewish and whose mother was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1943?

During the more than three years that he was in prison, in solitary confinement, Jacques Fesch experienced a profound religious conversion. We know this from the letters he wrote and from the diary he kept during the last months before his execution. Two persons who influenced his were the prison Catholic chaplain and his lawyer, a devout Catholic, named Baudet who expressed his concern for his client's immortal soul.

Jacques Fesch's conversion - he had been baptised a Catholic as an infant - was a gradual one, beginning with reading a book about Our Lady in October 1954 and coming to fruition by the following March, Around that time he wrote: At the end of my first year in prison, a powerful wave of emotion swept over me, causing deep and brutal suffering. Within the space of a few hours, I came into possession of faith, with absolute certainty. I believed … Grace came to me. A great joy flooded my soul, and above all a deep peace.

The Prophet Isaiah in the First Reading today speaks precisely to the situation in which Jacques Fesch found himself through his own sins: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:6-7).

In the light of that we can interpret the parable in today's gospel as telling us that God's mercy extends to all who will accept it, even to about the eleventh hour, to the very end of our lives. This is not something to take for granted so that we can carry on sinning until the last moment. That is the sin of presumption. But neither is it something to see as impossible, that we are beyond God's mercy. That is the sin of despair.

Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42-43).

The story of Jacques Fesch is not unlike that of the 'Good Thief', often called St Dismas, at the right hand of Jesus, who repented of his sins on his cross. It illustrates the truth of the words of St Paul in Romans 8: 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? These words are the inspiration for this Russian hymn.

Who Will Separate Us from the Love of God?

Thomas Craughwell in an article in the American weekly National Catholic Register writes about a number of canonised saints who had 'a history'. One example: Then there is St Callixtus, an embezzler, a brawler, a twice-convicted felon. Yet Callixtus repented, became a priest, was elected pope, and died a martyr.

Craughwell also, to a degree, plays the role of Devil's Advocate: Who among us would not hope that Fesch’s repentance was sincere, that his soul was saved? But it would have been simple for him to fool the prison chaplain, his devoutly Catholic defense attorney, his family, none of whom wanted to believe he was an irredeemable villain. As a man raised in a Catholic household, in a Catholic society, Fesch would have known how to play the role of penitent.

This article also mentions the reaction of some French police to the idea of Jacques Fesch's cause being beatified: A chief of a French police union asked a pointed question: 'Where are we headed, if we start beatifying criminals?' Another police union official warned that judges and prison wardens could expect to hear from condemned criminals who claimed, falsely, to have experienced a religious conversation after sentencing in order to generate sympathy and escape punishment.

These reactions are very understandable. In some ways they resemble the grumbling of those in the parable who had worked the full twelve hours: These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

However, the parable is not about wages or salaries but about God's boundless generosity and mercy. Each worker was given a denarius, a full day's wage. Jacques, who I believe had a real conversion, understood this. He wrote in a letter to his mother not long before he was executed: Everything is mercy, believe me, and I am confident that one day you will understand this more clearly than I, who am coming to the end of my life, and to whom so much is being given - a superabundance of good things and unimaginable joys. 'Amen, amen, I say to you even if I were to silence them, the very stones would cry out for joy.'

Jacques Fesch believed in the reality of eternal life, something we don't hear as much about as we should. At the top of this blog, under the title Bangor to Bobbio you will find these words of St Columban: Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home.

In a letter to a priest, the prison chaplain I think, Jacques wrote: I shall carry your name to heaven with me, written in my heart, and when the Lord allows me to cast a glance down to earth, I shall gaze into a dark little cell where a priest is celebrating the greatest of all possible sacrifices, uniting himself each day to crucified love, and then I shall ask our Lord to cast a gracious glance on his faithful minister and fill him with blessings. Peace be with you, my Father, and may the eternal light soon shine upon you also. Until we meet in God. Your humble and grateful sheep, Jacques.

What a beautiful expression of what is at the heart of the vocation of the priest!

Last week I included that great hymn written by another repentant sinner, John Newton, Amazing Grace. This week I will include another version recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic featuring Judy Collins, whose recording in 1970 brought it to the attention of many, including myself, who had never heard it before. It features choirs from different parts of the world. It also includes the stanza that I particularly love but that is often omitted.

When we've been there ten thousand years

Bright shining as the sun;

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we'd first begun.

Eternal life is the 'denarius' that God in His loving mercy wants to give each of us at the end of our life. May we work faithfully in His vineyard for however long and in whatever way He wishes us to do so and may we receive the precious gift of eternal life from Him 'when evening comes'.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

Extraordinary Form of the Mass

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

This Sunday, 20 September, is the Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost in the calendar that uses the TLM. The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 9-20-2020, if necessary).