A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus told his disciples this parable. The reign of god is like an owner of an estate who went out at dawn to hire workmen to work in his vineyard. After reaching an agreement with him for the usual daily wage, the owner sent them into his vineyard. Then he came out about midmorning and saw other men standing around without work.
So he said to them, you too go along into my vineyard, and I'll pay you whatever is fair. At that, they went away. The owner came out again around noon, and then again in midafternoon, and did the same thing. Finally, going out late in the afternoon, he found still more men standing around idle. To them he said, why have you been standing around here all the day idle?
And they said, because no one's hired us. Well, you too go into my vineyard. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the workmen and give them their pay, but begin with the last group and then end with the first. That was a mistake. When those hired late in the afternoon, and they came first to be paid, when they came up they received each man a full day's pay.
And then when the first group who had worked from the early morning appeared, they thought that they were going to get more. Yet they received each man the same daily wage. Well, you can imagine what happened. The union stepped in. Thereupon, they complained to the owner, why this last group did only an hour's work, but you have put them on the same basis as we who have worked a full day in the scorching heat.
My friend, said the owner in reply, I don't do you any injustice. You agreed on the usual wage, didn't you? Take your pay now and go home. I intend to give this man who was hired last the same pay as I gave you and which we agreed upon. I am free to do as I please with my money, am I not?
Or are you envious because I am generous? Thus and now this is our lord speaking. Thus, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ.
The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. This is not the most favored gospel with union leaders, but that, as attractive as it is, I wanna speak about my friend, Saint Pius the tenth, died in 1914 and was elected pope in nineteen o three. He had a a rather turbulent career. The church was going through a very severe, period.
And, let me hasten to add, every period of the church has been severe. Our Lord said it was going to be that way. He is known for various things. I want to just mention a few. First of all, for the idea that the first holy communion should be given to little children, not to wait till you're an adult, and that holy communion should be received frequently.
I was ordained in '35, 1935, and there were still very saintly people, I mean saintly people, who wouldn't have thought of going to communion more than once a year. I was told in the seminary, the place I was, that it was a you a student to go to communion, let us say once a week, had to be very had to be rather exceptional. You just couldn't leave the pew and go to communion every morning. So that's the first thing he changed radically. Took years and years and years for it to catch.
We take it for granted. So that was one of his most, far reaching, decisions, and it was a personal thing. And of course, it met all kinds of opposition. I know. I met these people because, you see, they were so holy that they and then they were so conscious of their sinfulness that they couldn't think of receiving communion more than once a year.
That's how they thought. So that's the first thing he's very famous for. We have have every reason to be grateful. Another thing which touched my life deeply and profoundly was his interest in the liturgy of the church. He is the one, you know, who reestablished Gregorian chant as the proper music of the Roman rite.
I repeat, it was Pius X in his Moto Proprio who laid it down that Gregorian chant was the proper music of the Roman rite, with also well chosen polyphony. And let me add right away that Vatican II, that is supposed to have changed everything, reasserted, reasserted, this is Vatican II now, that Gregorian chant is the proper music of the Roman liturgy. Well, you wouldn't guess that, you know, if you went around any churches. But that's what Vatican II said. And, you know, Vatican II supposedly changed everything.
I have yet to find that. Now another thing in his life which I must mention was his opposition to modernism. That's a very hard thing to define, and personally I think we have we're being deluged with it today. It was a in general was one of the big names. In general, it it turned religion into a subjective thing of feeling, of need.
This is tied in with consequences from Germany and also with the consequences of the new psychology. Religion is looked upon as a product of the subconscious. We have these needs and their religious needs. So we create religion by our need. Well, anybody knows that when you're very hungry that you create bread.
We all know that. And when you're very thirsty, you go out and you and you create a nice full tank of water. We all know that. You say, that's crazy. But you see, it's not it wasn't thought crazy to say that about religion.
The gospels were looked upon simply as myths that were were articulated by men, the four evangelists, who had a particular awareness of these religious needs. Well, yeah, I could go on and on. But of course, remember, a lot of this doctrine was the doctrine of the elite, of the cognoscenti, of the very intelligent, the way out people who had much more insight and oversight and sidelights on religion than the ordinary person, including the church. Well, he stood up against this opposition, and he issued a moto proprio, and then he issued his encyclical, passendi, and I don't say that that changed the course, but it modified it. He also instituted the idea that all who were officially concerned with the church had to take an oath against modernism.
I don't know whether it's still being done, but I know I had to take it. Anyway, Pius X had a tremendous impact upon the church and upon many lives. He also reinvigorated Leo XIII's insistence on the philosophy of Saint Thomas, which of course now was thrown overboard. Think of this, you don't realize how so much of the foundation of good solid intellectual life has been wiped out in the church. See, most people don't realize it.
It's been wiped out. We're getting priests today with practically no philosophical background at all. Well, anyway, Pius X tried to stand up against these errors, these weaknesses, these waves, whatever it is, ties. How well he succeeded, who knows? Who knows?
He tried. He tried so much that he'd been declared a saint, Saint Pius the tenth nineteen hundred and fifty four. I have a personal debt of gratitude to him. I hope he realizes where he is now too. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.