Chapter II
Homily on the Parable of the Labourers
It is said in the Gospel of to-day, my brethren, that the householder went out early in the morning to hire labourers to work in his vineyard. … Then there was no one yet in this vineyard? Yes, my brethren, there was the most holy Virgin Mary, who was born in that vineyard. … What is that vineyard? It is grace; and the Blessed Virgin was born in it, since she was conceived without sin. …
As for us, we have been called into it. The Lord of the vineyard sought for us, but the Blessed Virgin was always there. … Oh, beautiful labourer! The good God could have created a more beautiful world than that which exists, but He could not have given being to a creature more perfect than Mary. … She is the tower built in the midst of the vineyard of the Lord. …
Here, my children, is a feeble comparison. You know those eggs that are in the sea, from which come little fish, which dart so swiftly through the waters. … In the same way the Blessed Virgin, as soon as she is created, has the fulness of life, and swims in the great ocean of grace. …
Besides the Blessed Virgin, there was one who was for a moment out of the vineyard, but who was not long in entering it; that was St. John Baptist. All others came after St. John Baptist, and the Lord of the vineyard had to go out to seek them.
Who are the labourers of the first hour? St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Stanislas Kostka, St. Colette; … all those who entered into the vineyard by holy Baptism, and who never went out of it, since they preserved their innocence. … Happy souls who can say to God, “O Lord, I have always belonged to Thee!” Oh, how beautiful, how grand it is to give one’s youth to God! What a source of joy and happiness!
Then come those who give themselves to God in the vigour of their life. They may still be sincerely converted, and remain good and faithful labourers in the vineyard of the Lord. … But those poor hardened sinners, who pass their lives far from God, who come to work in His vineyard when they are unable to do any thing else, who wait to give up sin till sin gives them up, … oh, they are very much to be pitied! When a person has revelled for years and years in evil, when he has wallowed at his ease in the mire of sin, it requires a miracle to make him leave it. My brethren, let us ask for this miracle for them. …
[We seem to find here, in a simple form, adapted to a country audience, the method of the ancient Fathers; their broad and luminous manner of interpreting and developing the sense of the Gospel—not stopping at the letter of it, but penetrating into the mysteries it contains, revealing its treasures of wisdom and of love, showing the harmony of the two Testaments, the accomplishment of prophecy, the relations of the past and the future, of doctrines and commandments.
Every one will observe the beauty of the comparison of the little fishes just hatched swimming in the wide seas, with the Blessed Virgin plunged from her birth in the ocean of divine grace.]
