Brothers, 

Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis of Assisi was approaching the end of his earthly life. Nearly blind, physically broken, and bearing the wounds of Christ, Francis knew death was near. Yet the man who had called the sun his brother and the moon his sister could even speak of death as “Sister Death.”

 

There is something remarkably free about a man who can face death that way.

 

Perhaps Francis could because, somewhere along the way, he had stopped living as though the vineyard belonged to him.

 

That is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of Jesus’ parable this Sunday. The tenants forgot whose vineyard it was. They began acting like owners rather than servants. The vineyard, its harvest, and even the time they had been given within it were never theirs.

 

Brothers, neither is ours.

 

Our ordination, assignments, ministries, and even the people we have been privileged to baptize, marry, bury, teach, visit, and serve have been entrusted to us for a time. We labor in Another’s vineyard.

 

That is worth remembering as we prepare for Deacon Sunday next weekend.

 

The prayer card our people will receive captures this beautifully. A deacon, vested for service, kneels before the Crucified Christ. His head is bowed. One shoe has slipped away, leaving a bare foot exposed, a small detail reminiscent of Rembrandt’s ‘Return of the Prodigal Son.’ It is an image of humility, poverty, and surrender.

 

Before the deacon stands Christ, whose own pierced feet remind us where all diaconal service begins and ends.

 

Before we stand at the ambo, we kneel before Him. Before we serve His people, we belong to Him. Before we ask others to follow Christ, we must remain at the feet of Christ ourselves.

 

Deacon Sunday, then, really isn’t about us. It is about the One before whom every deacon ultimately kneels.

 

Someday our own feet will stop walking parish aisles. Our assignments will end. Like Francis, each of us will make our own transitus, our passage home.

 

What will remain?  Jesus gives us the measure: fruit.

 

So, brothers, while the Lord still gives us strength to walk, let us walk well. Let us spend ourselves generously in His vineyard, always remembering whose vineyard it is.

 

It was never ours. What a privilege, though, to have been called to labor in it!

In Christ the Servant + Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Receive + Believe + Teach + Practice