AUGUST 19, 2026 FATHER HENK VAN MEIJEL
Jesus throws everything upside down.
And normal human reason would say the first should get a whole lot more pay than the last one.
It’s rightly so. They only worked for an hour.
But if you look at salvation, the price is to be fully united in heaven with God. Fully united in heaven with God.
And it doesn’t matter if we have been good Christians all our life, from childhood, or we have a conversion right at the last minute before we die.
It doesn’t matter. The price is the same.
It is so important to keep that in mind. And to give freely.
At Manresa we do also a lot of work with addictions, with AA community, and someone can say: “Hey, I’ve been always a good person all my life. “I was a good Christian, why do they get the same thing I do?”
But often someone who is away from the Lord, and especially in addictions, the turmoil they go through, the internal battle between good and evil in their lives is sometimes unspeakable.
They did plenty of penance.
And sometimes especially receive the fifth step, especially if it is under confession, that I will say at the end of confession, which can be an hour or more, I will say: “Your penance is you’re free. You have served your penance because in your addiction you knew what hell looked like. You suffered enough. Enough is enough.”
This is also with God. God is a just judge.
But in the first reading we have Ezekiel really lashing out against the shepherds. The shepherds in those days, it was the Jewish leadership, but we can take it today as priests. I, as a priest, as a shepherd. Am I looking after myself? Am I taking the easy way out?
I have that choice as a priest, just do the minimum I have to do, and I will just have an easy life. Or am I really living my vocation?
Am I living my vocation, and I’m giving what I can.
And there’s of course a difference between having a vocation and an eight-to-five job. Or in these days, nine-to-five.
This is for each one of us. How generous am I with my life? How generous am I with my resources? And give it to God.
Saint John Eudes, he lived in the 17th century. He died in 1680, at a fair age of 79. He really saw how many shepherds, how many priests, were poorly educated.
Many religious orders, they had their own formation. For example, the Jesuits. Their formation of priests was well established, and was pretty good.
But diocesan priests of his time in France, they were very poorly educated. Barely knew what they were doing. So he established several seminaries, and really promoted proper education.
As a priest I have to have a decent formation, so I know what I’m talking about, so I have some kind of understanding of scripture and so on. And have some kind of understanding of canon law and so on.
Saint John he brought renewal to the Church. And actually, there’s a movement to elevate him to Doctor of the Church, because of all he did to promote good faith and good habits.
He very much promoted the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of Mary. The love that heart of Jesus and Mary. Which suffers for us but loves us so much. And that suffering heart.
He wrote, I quote: “You must never separate what God has so perfectly united. So closely are Jesus and Mary bound up with each other that whatever beholds Jesus sees Mary, whoever loves Jesus loves Mary, whoever has devotion to Jesus has devotion to Mary.”
Mary and Jesus are so closely related.
He really promoted this, and brought many people to Church.
The better the shepherds are educated and formatted, in their prayer life, and but also in their studies, the more they will be examples for others.
Which is as much needed today as in the time of Jesus, 2,000 years ago.
That we are signs for others. That people can trust us. And that we are people who live what we preach.
This is so important. But this is also so important for parents. To be that example for others. To that priestly presence for their children.
And to live to preach and to live what they preach. Amen.
