A Homily for Septuagesima Sunday

+ “How is it that you are standing here idle all day?”

This question, put by the owner of the vineyard merely one hour before the end of the working day in the process of hiring the idle men and sending them to work (any generously paying them a full-day’s wage regardless) cuts to the quick of many a human situation. For whilst we may be busy about many things – indeed our activity and even our production in this world’s terms may be great – in respect of the Kingdom of Heaven we may well be standing around idle.
 
It is instructive that the liturgical tradition of Holy Mother the Church challenges us with this question on Septuagesima Sunday, when we resume violet vestments and are thus reminded that the Great Fast – Lent – is less than three weeks away. For it would not do for us to be standing around idle throughout Lent. There is work to be done.
 
There is work that we have to do in respect of ourselves. And there is work to be done in the Vineyard of the Lord.
 
In respect of ourselves, the Gospel calls us to address once and for all that which I have still not addressed: the vice(s) that I have, perhaps, given up tackling; the situation in which I have placed or find myself that is not according to God’s law; the duties that I simply have not gotten around to fulfilling, etc. Even if it is very late in the day, even if for most of my life I have been idle in respect of something, even if I am tired and discouraged, I am called by the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ to tackle the task at hand. And I have the assurance of a generous and full reward for so doing.
 
In respect of the Kingdom of God there is work to be done in the Vineyard of the Lord. Each of us according to our particular vocation is called to do what is required of us. Our Baptism requires that we work as missionaries in every circumstance of life. Whatever our state, whatever our work or profession, we must not be idle in respect of the witness we are called to give to the Truth that Salvation comes through Jesus Christ and the One True Church He founded.
 
If I have hitherto done little or nothing in this respect, if it is already the eleventh hour and I am still procrastinating in the practical apostasy that renders my faith a “purely private matter,” there is still time. Our Lord calls me to work for Him now, before the day is over. Before the day, and all that could be accomplished during it, even at the last minute, is lost.
 
St Gregory the Great’s commentary on this Gospel at matins this morning focuses on the specific call of the Lord to exclusive service in His Vineyard. It must be observed that in our day there are many young men standing around idle in respect of the work to be done here. Some will speak of going to work in His Vineyard, but never actually do it. Others will enter a process of discernment that becomes an end in itself, if not perpetual, and which renders them idle for decades. Others still dissemble into a singularity and particularity that insists that the vineyard confirm to their own preoccupations, disdaining to work in anything that does not conform accordingly and resting idle beyond even the eleventh hour not matter how often the Lord calls.
 
In these circumstances the Lord’s question resounds with force: “How is it that you are standing here idle all day?” And His instruction is clear: “Go ye, also, into my vineyard.” Saint Benedict teaches us that “Idleness is the enemy of the soul” (Rule ch. 48). Vocational idleness is indeed an enemy – one which threatens the very life of the soul, now and for all eternity. And it rightly brings judgement upon us, for if I am idle the work which Almighty God in His Providence has planned that I alone can accomplish shall remain undone. The growth of the Kingdom of God shall be retarded, not advanced, by my sloth.
 
My brothers and sisters, there is work to be done by each of us – in ourselves and for the Lord in different and crucial ways. Septuagesima calls us to rise from our idleness – of whatever sort – and to get on with the work that must needs be done. Now. Not tomorrow. Not (perhaps) in Lent. But now.
 
The purple vestments of Septuagesima beckon us to repentance and conversion. With the grace of the sacrament of Confession let us be purged of the sins of idleness. Nourished by the Holy Eucharist let us get on with the work of the day. It may well be approaching the eleventh hour, but the Lord shall still recompense us generously, if only we shall do what He requires of us. Now. +

---