“I’m always glad when we have the reading of that particular Gospel because afterwards someone will come up to me and say, ‘Father, I’m a businessman and you could never pay the same for someone who works all day long and one person who works for one hour. That’s business.’ and I say, ‘Yes, that is bad business.’ but this is not economics 101, this is really God’s mercy and it’s a lesson in God’s mercy. It’s God telling us how generous he can be within his own merciful love that God does not count the way we do. God counts in a special way in relationship to how merciful he can be and for all those who labor within the Kingdom he calls them to realize that yes he will give them what they need. The denarius was one day’s wage and one day’s wage meant that’s what they needed to live on and that’s the reason why in this parable he’s giving them enough for what they need for that day and he’s recognizing that everybody needs that whether they’ve worked one hour or eight hours. They still need that basic generosity and that’s the purpose and the meaning of that parable. God will always be there to meet our needs maybe not in the way in which we expect, maybe not in the way we wish he would do, but God will always give us the grace that we need. God will always give us the strength that we need no matter what the challenge that we may have and these I know are challenging times for many many of you. There’s a lot of frustration in our world these days. There’s a lot of anxiety. There’s a lot of depression going on. There’s a lot of people who are feeling a lot of angst about their situation and what’s going to happen in the future and in the midst of that we need to know that God is always there, that God’s help is there, that God’s grace is there. Jesus invites us to put away anxiety and worry and to replace those with trust and confidence and prayer. Obviously there’s many negative ways in which we can respond to some of those challenges that are there whether it’s anxiety or depression or worry and those negative ways maybe are tempting, but they really don’t solve the problem. They don’t bring about greater life. There needs to be more self-care in these days, self-care that really nurtures the person that improves the life that we live and in the midst of this time, yes there’s challenges, but there’s also I believe an abundance of God’s grace that God gives us what he needs. There’s so many resources within communities. There’s so many people who are caring and concerned. Unfortunately there’s a lot of social isolation these days and that’s not good for us. I don’t even like the term social distancing because we don’t need to distance socially. We need to distance physically, but not socially. We need each other even more. We need to reach out to friends. We need to reach out to other people. We need to maintain good healthy social relationships. We need to know that there’s a lot of services that are available to people who may be experiencing a particular anxiety or stress or worry, some depression or problems in their personal lives. There’s so many opportunities for help and most of all I think there is the power of prayer that if we can turn to prayer more, if we can find and rediscover a deeper prayer life, a deeper presence of Christ within the Eucharist, a deeper awareness of the Blessed Mother in the Rosary to help us during difficult times. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had tell me that this isolation time has been a blessing to them in their spiritual life that it’s helped them to improve their prayer life. It’s helped them to develop a greater relationship with God and within their families and with others because of that openness to God’s grace and so we all need to recognize the opportunities for the good for the challenges that are there that will enable us to become better people even in the midst of these challenging times. God’s generosity is different from ours. God’s graciousness is always there and God’s grace somehow will always give us what we need if we are but open to receive it.”