{"id":4087,"date":"2026-07-17T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpaulmacomb.com\/church\/?p=4087"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:16:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:16:36","slug":"weekly-reflection-july-19-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpaulmacomb.com\/church\/weekly-reflection-july-19-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Reflection \u2013 July 19, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Vineyard of Faith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s Gospel message is one that I struggle with quite often. I find myself saying, \u201cI got here first\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting longer\u201d. Sometimes I ask myself, \u201cI\u2019ve worked harder and longer. Why am I not reaping the same benefits or rewards and someone else who has not worked as hard or as long as I have?\u201d Then I hear this parable and am immensely humbled. How many people serve God in a greater capacity than I do? A ton! Great saints like John Paul II, Gemma Galgani, Jose Luis S\u00e1nchez, and Martin of Porres dedicated their lives to Christ and His Church. Comparatively, I do very little. But rather than resigning myself to the fact that I may never \u201cmeasure up\u201d to their faith, I look to the saints as inspiration for my own life and I ask for their intercession. And what about those who have not yet come to the faith? Would we reject them just because they are coming to the faith later than we are? Absolutely not! We welcome them with open arms because we are grateful that they have come to know the same love of God that we know.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s Gospel serves as a humbling reminder that God is generous and merciful. He desires us to be united with Him in His Heavenly Kingdom whether we come to His vineyard at 5 years old or 95. It is not an effort of ours or merit we can earn that grants us God\u2019s love. Rather, He loves without condition and makes His love equally available to all.<\/p>\n<p>When we come to God\u2019s vineyard, He envelops us in His love, which we hear about in today\u2019s Responsorial Psalm. Every time I hear Psalm 23, I think of myself in preschool. I don\u2019t have many memories of preschool; in fact, I don\u2019t even remember my teacher\u2019s name or the names of any of my classmates. What I do remember, however, is being taught Psalm 23. \u201cThe Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.\u201d For a long time, I wondered why that Psalm and why at such a young age? Looking back now, I think I understand. Our teacher wanted us all to be confident of God\u2019s everlasting love for us. If we know that love at a young age we can grow up knowing Him and loving Him, and even bring more laborers to His beautiful vineyard.<\/p>\n<p>May we always remember the love of God and may we continue working as laborers in his vineyard.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2081\" data-end=\"2103\"><strong>\u2014 <i>Dakota Pesce<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2105\" data-end=\"2170\"><em data-start=\"2105\" data-end=\"2170\">Reflection provided by diocesan.com. Reprinted with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vineyard of Faith Today\u2019s Gospel message is one that I struggle with quite often. I find myself saying, \u201cI got here first\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting longer\u201d. Sometimes I ask myself, \u201cI\u2019ve worked harder and longer. Why am I not reaping the same benefits or rewards and someone else who has not worked as hard or as long as  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-reflections"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Weekly Reflection \u2013 July 19, 2026 - St. Paul Church Macomb, IL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stpaulmacomb.com\/church\/weekly-reflection-july-19-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Weekly Reflection \u2013 July 19, 2026 - St. Paul Church Macomb, IL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Vineyard of Faith Today\u2019s Gospel message is one that I struggle with quite often. 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