Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

September 27, 2020

In the Gospel parable, Jesus sets before us two imperfect persons, two sons who each make mistakes. Both are asked by their father to go and work in His vineyard. One son abruptly refused his father; “I will not,” he retorted, “but afterwards he changed his mind and went.” The other son talked a good game but never followed through. He said an impetuous “Yes, sir,” but never went. Neither son was perfect; but, in the end, the former changed his mind and obeyed. We can all learn from him.

On Wednesday of this week, the Church will celebrate the Feast Day of one of the greatest Biblical scholars, St. Jerome. Best known for translating the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin, he was also known for having a fiery temper.  He mastered languages with ease, but try as he might, he found it almost impossible to master his tongue. The path to using his freedom for good was not an easy one. Every day, for months and years, Jerome begged Jesus for the grace to be patient and kind. But day after day, he failed. For such a brilliant scholar, it was humiliating and embarrassing; at the same time, God allowed Jerome to struggle for conversion of his mind and heart.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you and I can find encouragement in this brilliant yet difficult saint. The poet Phyllis McGinley captured Jerome’s personality in a poem titled “The Thunderer.” I hope you find as much encouragement in it as I do. It goes like this:

God’s angry man, His crotchety scholar,
was Saint Jerome, the great name-caller,
Who cared not a dime for the laws of libel,
and in his spare time, translated the Bible…
worked to save the world from the heathen;
Fled to a cave for peace to breathe in,
Promptly wherewith for miles around
He filled the air with fury and sound.
In a mighty prose, for almighty ends,
He thrust at his foes, quarreled with his friends,
And served his Master, though with complaint,
He wasn’t a plaster sort of saint.
But He swelled men’s minds with a Christian leaven.
—- It takes all kinds to make a heaven.

By birth and by nurture, our personality is formed before we begin to shape it with our own decisions. The important question is not: did God give me a pleasant personality or a crabby one? Better questions are: How do I deal with the personality traits I’ve got? How do I treat the family and neighbors God gave me?

The son in the parable who answered, “Yes, sir,” but never went, appeared to be nice. He answered his father with courtesy and respect. But he never followed through. He spoke words that were nice but empty – ones he never put into practice.

The other son, on the contrary, initially failed to rise above his cantankerous attitude, answering with a harsh and hasty “No!” But afterwards, he regretted his words and did not remain a victim of his past mistakes. He admitted he was wrong; changed his mind and went to work for His Father. Under Jesus’ merciful gaze, the most despised people of His time turned their lives around: tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalen, and Saul of Tarsus.

G.K. Chesterton said that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who admit they are sinners and those who don’t. The path to holiness begins with admitting our sins. With the help of God, we can turn bad decisions and attitudes around, and not remain trapped in habitual sins of the past.

Several years ago, there was a book titled: I’m OK and You’re OK. It’s a lie! If “I’m OK and you’re OK”, then why did Jesus die on the Cross? If you and I are basically good, then why do we have riots and killings, division and discord? Why do we need, over and over, to ask for forgiveness? Why did Jesus die for us on the Cross? Was the Cross the triumph of love or just a tragedy empty of meaning?

St. Paul, in our second reading, describes this greatest act of God’s mercy (Phil 2:5ff):

“Jesus, …though He was in the form of God… emptied Himself… humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the Cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.”

Jesus died on the Cross because humanity needed Redemption: something was terribly wrong with every member of the human family, something humanity could not fix on its own, something we call Original Sin.

We begin to sense this sin when we become aware of contradictions deep within our soul, when we find ourselves doing the opposite of what our heart desires. St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans (7:15): “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” As St. Paul earnestly desired to turn away from past faults and to do God’s will, he discovered that his soul was not a field of dreams but a field of battle against evil.

The son in the Parable who said, “I won’t go”, must have found himself thinking, “Why did I react in such an ugly way with my father? What has gotten into me?” Thank goodness, he faced his stubborn pride, admitted he was wrong, and went to set things right. That is conversion. That is the work of mercy. And that is the way to grow in holiness.

My sons and daughters in the Lord, fidelity to Christ cannot happen without a regular habit of examining our conscience, admitting our faults, and confessing our sins.  There is no other path to loving communion with Jesus. As St. John writes in his First Epistle (1:8-9), “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.” Many blessings come to us when we have the humility and courage to say, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” In the words of the Opening Prayer for this Mass, let us say, “O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us…”