October 5, 2026
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A) on October 8, 2023 at the Paulist Center in Boston, MA. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80; Philippians 4:6-9; and Matthew 21:33-43.
We’re in our third of four weeks with St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, widely considered to be Paul’s happiest letter. It probably didn’t hurt that the Philippians bankrolled Paul’s subsequent travels. The generosity of the Philippian community gave Paul the freedom to ask everyone else to donate money for the impoverished Christians back in the Holy Land.
Paul’s joy in the Letter to the Philippians is even more remarkable, considering that he wrote this letter from prison. For those of us who tend to dwell on what’s going wrong in our lives, rather than on what’s going right, Paul is a shining of example of cultivating gratitude to God in all circumstances.
The rest of our readings today are much darker, about people squandering the gifts given to them by God. On this weekend when we observe the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, let us consider the vineyards in the 1st reading, the psalm, and the gospel as metaphors for the earth itself and our role as stewards of creation. May the examples of St. Paul and St. Francis help us to find hope!
Aware of God’s mercy, let us be nourished by hope in God in all circumstances!
Lord Jesus, your cross and sacrifice redeem us: Lord, have mercy.
Your Body and Blood nourish us: Christ, have mercy.
Your resurrection brings us new life: Lord, have mercy.
Last night was the 800th anniversary of what is commonly called the transitus of St. Francis of Assisi. 800 years ago on the evening of October 3, St. Francis died and transitioned into eternal life. St. Francis is one of the most influential people in all of Church history. When Cardinal Jorge Bergolio was elected pope, he chose the name “Francis” in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. And Pope Francis’ legacy will be forever tied to the legacy of St. Francis. Both cared for people on the margins. Both engaged in interreligious dialogue. Both called for Catholicism to be “a poor church for the poor.” One of Pope Francis’ most influential encyclicals — the one on care for the environment — was titled after one of St. Francis’ most influential prayers, Laudato Si’, also called The Canticle of the Creatures.
And so, while the vineyard that features so prominently in our readings can symbolize many different things, it seems appropriate today to focus on the vineyard as the earth itself. When God created the world, he instructed us to the stewards, or the co-creators, of creation. I don’t know how you feel, but when I apply the gospel’s parable of the wicked tenants to how well I’ve done as a steward of God’s creation, I feel really uncomfortable. How many times in the past month have I insisted on turning on the air conditioning, not because it was too hot, but because it was too humid? As an American, I know that I consume more than my fair share of the world’s energy.
The biggest danger to the environment now is not the denial of the problem. We face a double threat: of people who think the full effects of climate change will not not happen until far in the future, and of wealthy, powerful people who think that they can simply spend enough money to protect themselves from the damage. But all of us here know that there’s not enough money in the world to build sufficient infrastructure to protect everyone from the ravages of unbridled global warming.
It’s easy to give in to despair. But as the Canadian climate activist David Suzuki said recently, “Despair is a luxury we can’t afford any longer.” Washington Post journalist Amanda Shendruk spoke of our need for an optimism that is, and I quote, “a dissatisfied, gritty, determined confidence that humanity can bring about needed change in the face of great challenges.”
Yes, we need that gritty, determined confidence to continue speaking up, to continue making sacrifices, to continue organizing resources, and to continue winning people to the cause of environmental protection. But I think that we need to find a supernatural, spiritual wellspring at which to continually replenish our energy. Frankly, optimism doesn’t cut it. Optimism is just the secular idea that tomorrow will be better than today. Even a character as selfish and as materialistic as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind was an optimist!
There’s a theological virtue that can sustain us in our care for the environment much better than the idea of optimism: it’s the virtue of hope. In the past year, the Paulist Fathers have tried to define the underlying values of our ever-changing mission. And they concluded that Paulists are missionaries of hope. The founder of the Paulists, Fr. Isaac Hecker, was an incredibly positive person. For example, when the Paulists were a fledgling community with only a few dozen priests, Hecker wanted to expand the mission from proclaiming the gospel throughout English-speaking North America to include proclaiming the gospel throughout all of Europe, too! But what drove him wasn’t mere optimism. It was hope.
I hate to admit it, but when the Paulist General Assembly declared i4 months ago that Paulists were missionaries of hope, I wasn’t really sure I knew what hope was. The theologian Kevin Himes defined it as the belief that ever since God first began creation with the words “Let there be light,” God has been continually called out to each of us at every moment. God’s invitation is always present to us, always ready to rekindle our energy to do all good things. When God entrusted us to be the stewards of creation, I believe he wanted us to keep checking in with him all the time for further advice, instructions, and encouragement, not to go it alone. In this time of rapid climate change, increasing corporate dominance, escalating wars, and panicking that artificial intelligence may destroy the world, we must realize that despair is a luxury we can’t afford. We must have hope.
Hope is a combination of two things: it is both the desire for something, and the expectation that we will receive it. Just as we are stewards of God’s creation, we have been baptized as agents of God’s liberating and saving actions. Our “gritty, determined confidence that humanity can bring about needed change” depends on us working hand-in-hand with the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We are not in this alone. Even now, God is on our side in caring for creation.
And when it comes to the virtue of hope, our passage from Philippians today is the epitome of hope. Writing from prison — most likely from his final imprisonment in Rome when he knew he would soon be martyred — Paul instructed us to have no anxiety at all and always to be grateful.
Paul was filled with Christian hope, as were St. Francis and Fr. Hecker. In fact, all the saints have been people of hope, both desiring for God’s creation to be restored to its original purpose, and expecting it to happen through their cooperation with God’s plan.
And when we are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious people, we, too, will experience the peace of God within us. And if the peace of God is with us, who can be against us?