Epistle.
1 Corinthians ix. 24; x. 5.

Brethren:
Know you not that they who run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain.

And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things; and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air: but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea; and they did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ). But with the most of them God was not well pleased.

Gospel.
St. Matthew xx. 1-16.

At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a master of a family, who went early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing in the market-place idle. And he said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just. And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: Why stand you here all the day idle? They say to him: Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them: Go you also into my vineyard. And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first. When, therefore, they came, who had come about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should have received more, and they also received every man a penny. And when they received it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying: These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats. But he answering one of them, said: Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine and go thy way: I will also give to this last even as to thee. Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? is thy eye evil because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last, For many are called, but few chosen.

Sermon XXXII.

Why stand ye here all the day idle?
—St. Matthew xx. 6.

This life, my dear friends, is often spoken of in Scripture as a day, both on account of its shortness and because the night of death follows. Now, there are certainly many persons who do stand all their lives idle; that is to say, they do not try to "work out their own salvation"; they do not try to do anything in the Lord's vineyard, the church, by helping forward good works either by their means or by their active service. There are a great number of men and women who never think of caring for the great business of their salvation. Day after day goes by, week after week, and they have done no good works, corrected no faults, made absolutely no advancement or improvement. It is too much trouble for them to examine their consciences, too tiresome to stir themselves to go to Mass and the sacraments. They have sunk into a state of spiritual drowsiness by the world's fireside; in a word, they are all the day idle. Oh! if there are any such here, let them take warning. For the night will surely come, and then it will be too late. Perhaps this is the eleventh hour for you. God has called you often before; now, by the voice of his priest, he speaks once more and says: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" To-day you see again the purple vestments and hangings; they tell you that Lent is fast approaching, that a time of grace is coming round once more. Oh! then, you that have yet a few hours of the day of life left, go into the vineyard of your own souls, root up the weeds, till the soil, plant good seed, that the Father of all may be able in the end to give you the wages of everlasting life.

Again, such among you as have means, or who are able to help your pastor by active service in the charge of the sick and the poor, who can teach the uninstructed, help along in sewing-schools and in forming sodalities and pious organizations of various kinds—to you also the cry comes, "Why stand ye all the day idle?" Why, when called upon to bear a little part of the priest's burden, are so many people like an old gun that hangs fire? Why is it often so difficult for the priest to get the active co-operation of the lay people? Why does he so often get the "cold shoulder" as people say, when he asks a little help? Is it not because people won't go into the vineyard, won't work, won't take trouble? Because they would rather not be bothered? How often they say: "I have no time"; "What are the priests for, anyhow?" "Let them look after these things." Thus they stand all the day idle, and the hard work falls on the priests and just a few self-sacrificing helpers. When you are called on, then, by your pastors to help in the parish, "don't be backward in coming forward"; make up your minds that you will not stand idle, but that it shall be "a long pull and a strong pull, and a pull all together."

Why should we be so afraid of idleness in spiritual things and in works of charity? Because, my dear friends, the time is short. Life is passing swiftly. The night of death is at hand. Soon the cry will be heard: "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to meet him." Soon the Master of the vineyard will come and look at our work. Woe to us if he finds that we either never went into the vineyard at all, or, at best, the work there was so ill done that our part of the land is choked with docks and darnels and every kind of weed! You know, doubtless, that people sometimes give to each of their children a little garden to plant; ah! how these children try to make "my garden" the best one. How careful they are of it, how grieved if the frost or some noxious insect should destroy the flowers or fruits! We are all children; God has given us each a little garden, a little piece of his great vineyard, to care and tend. Let us, then, like the little ones, try to make our garden the finest, that when our Father, God, and our dear Mother, Mary, come to look at it they may find it full of beauty and fragrance, and say concerning us: "This one, at least, did not stand all the day idle."

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

Sermon XXXIII.

They murmured against the master of the house.
—St. Matthew xx. 11.

We can hardly fail, my dear brethren, to understand the meaning of this parable of our Lord, though he himself has given no explanation of it. He is the master of the house; we are the laborers whom he has hired to work in his vineyard, and hired, too, at a very great price; for the penny which the laborers all received represents the reward of eternal life which he has promised to all who die in his service, even though they come to that service at the eleventh hour—that is, at the end of their lives.

Now, I do not know that we are inclined to find fault with our Lord for forgiving one who has sinned during his whole life and sincerely repents, though it be on his death-bed. We are generous enough to be glad when one is really converted and saves his soul; and perhaps all the more if it be at the last moment. We do not find fault with God for his mercy, but rather we thank him for it.

But we are inclined to murmur against him for what seems to us to be an unjust and partial distribution of his mercies, as the laborers murmured against their master. They did not complain that the last received a penny, but that they themselves did not receive more. They thought that the master ought to have proportioned the wages to the service rendered; but we can see plainly enough that he was not so bound. All he was bound to was to give the penny to all those to whom he had promised it; as for the rest, he might have given any one of them his whole property, if he had taken a special fancy to him. You would not say that a man acted unjustly if he should single out any one of his servants and make him a special present over and above his regular wages. You would say, as the master of the house said, that he could do what he liked with what remained after his debts were paid.

Now, let us apply this, which is nothing but common sense, to our Lord's relations to us. He has a debt to pay to us to which he has bound himself. It is a real debt to us, because it rests on a real promise which he has made. And that debt is to forgive us when we really turn to him and repent of our sins, and to give us, through his own merits and the shedding of his own Blood, the eternal happiness which that precious Blood has purchased for us. But he is not bound to give us graces which will force us to repent; nor is he bound to give to each one of us the same graces inclining us to repent. He has promised forgiveness to those who repent, but not repentance to those who sin. Still less is he bound to give to all the same impulses to perfection, the same interior consolations, the same extraordinary supernatural gifts of any kind. He is no more bound to this than he is bound to give us all the same amount of natural strength, whether of mind or body, or the same amount of worldly goods. He has his reasons for the distribution of his gifts, it is true, and they are wise and holy ones, we may be sure; for he does not act from caprice, as we might do. But they are not reasons of justice to us, but mercy. If we were treated according to strict justice I do not know who among us would be saved.

Remember this, then, my brethren, when you are inclined to find fault with our Lord for his treatment of you or others. Remember that you have already received many times more than in strict justice was your due. Remember the countless favors, both temporal and spiritual, which you have already received at his hands, and be ashamed of complaining that others have received even more. Beware of envying them those things which God, in his great mercy, has freely bestowed on them; take care not to covet your neighbor's goods, for that is exactly what you are in danger of doing. And remember, specially, the great gift which he has given you all, and which many others who certainly seem, even in your own eyes, as good as yourselves have not received; that is, the light of the one true faith. Remember that you have not had to struggle in darkness and uncertainty; that you have always been able to know what to believe and what to do. Others, it is true, might have this, too, if they would do their own part; but that part God has done for you. Thank him, then, for this unspeakable mercy, and do not complain of other things which he has given or withheld.

Sermon XXXIV.

So run that you may obtain.
—1 Corinthians ix. 24.

There is a great rage just now, my brethren, as you are aware, for walking, running, or footing it in any way. He or she is the best man or woman who can go the greatest number of miles in a week, or the greatest number of quarter-miles in the same number of quarter-hours. The interesting question of the present day is who can plod along with the greatest number of big blisters on each foot, or best endure being stirred up every fifteen minutes from a few winks of much-needed sleep, and go to sleep again the soonest after accomplishing the required number of laps on a tan-bark track.

This is all very well in its way. Walking is not a bad thing for the health at any time; and just now it is a decidedly good thing for the pocket, if one is strong enough to excel in it. But for most people there are better ways of getting over the ground. Even the professional pedestrian will not refuse, now and then, to make use of the elevated railway.

There is one journey, however, which we all have to make on foot. That is the journey to heaven, where we all want to go. There is no elevated railway to take us there. If we are to get there it must be by our own exertions. We may, it is true, save part of the labor by availing ourselves of the very uncomfortable and slow transit provided in purgatory; but that is a thing which we must surely wish to avoid as far as possible.

Yes, my brethren, every sensible person will try to escape that means of conveyance, and make this journey on foot over the road prepared in this world. Furthermore, as he has this long walk to take—for heaven is not very near to most of us—he will try to fit himself for it; to go into training, and to keep in training, so that he may not break down on the way, or find himself with a short record when the end of his time arrives. He will bear in mind the warning of St. Paul in to-day's Epistle: "So run that you may obtain."

How does the pedestrian manage to run so as to obtain his fame, his thousand dollars, and his gate-money? In the first place he works hard and sticks to his work. He does not waste his time by sitting down on the benches and watching the other man. He keeps on the track as long as he is able. When he cannot keep on any longer he takes the rest and food that he needs—not a bit more—and goes at it again. Sometimes he feels ready to drop; but he keeps on, and the fatigue passes away.

Secondly, he not only keeps to his work, but he avoids everything else that can interfere with it. He does not live on plum-cake and mince pie, or fill up with bad whiskey and drugged beer. He adopts a good, plain, wholesome diet—something that will stick to his bones and go to muscle, not to fat.

Thirdly, he does not stagger round the ring with a Saratoga trunk on his back. Far from it. He lays aside every weight that he can. He even makes his clothes as light as possible. He does not care to carry anything more than himself over the five hundred miles that he has to go.

Lastly, he has a director. He does not call him by that name—he calls him a trainer; but it comes to the same thing. He does not trust his own judgment, but has some one else to feed him, to tend him, to check him, or to urge him on.

Now, in all things, my friends, the pedestrian sets us a good example: in the earnestness which inspires him, and the means he takes to ensure success.

Imitate him in them in the great journey before you, in which so much more than fame and gate-money is involved. In the first place, keep to your work; let every waking moment be a step toward heaven. Be not weary in well-doing. Secondly, do not indulge sensuality; use what the world has to give so that it may help you on your course, and not for its own sake. Eat and drink so that your body may be strong enough to serve your soul, but not strong enough to rule it. Thirdly, do not put a great load of riches on your back, unless you have got some good use to make of it. You will have to drop it at the end of your race, and it will only keep you back and prevent your winning. Lastly, do not trust yourself too much. Have some one to help you—a director who will guide you and tell you when you make mistakes, when you are going too fast or too slow.

This is nothing but common prudence; use it, and your transit to the kingdom of heaven shall be both rapid and sure.