Day 42

The landowner asks, “Are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15). That question reaches into recovery. Comparison can make us forget what God has already done because we become preoccupied with how someone else’s story is unfolding. We may wonder why another person found sobriety sooner, why their family seems to be healing faster, or why they appear to experience a spiritual freedom that still feels distant to us.

Underneath comparison is often the belief that grace should work like a scorecard. If we have worked harder or been faithful longer, part of us expects that God should reward us accordingly. The opposite can happen too. We may believe we arrived too late, failed too many times, or wasted too much of our lives to receive what others have found.

The first reading challenges both ways of thinking: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8). We tend to calculate what seems fair. God continues going into the marketplace, looking for people who are still standing there and inviting them into His vineyard. His generosity toward someone else does not reduce what He has given us.

This does not mean effort is irrelevant. Every worker still has to enter the vineyard. Recovery requires action. We show up and work the Steps. We tell the truth, make amends where needed, and keep doing the next right thing. But these practices are responses to grace. They are not ways of putting God in our debt or proving that we deserve more than someone else.

Gratitude helps loosen comparison’s grip. Instead of asking why another person received something we wanted, we can ask what God has placed in our hands today. Perhaps it is another day of sobriety or simply the willingness to begin again. Gratitude does not deny what we still long for. It keeps longing from becoming resentment.

There is also great hope in the workers who arrive late. No one needs to conclude that they have missed their chance. Some of us find recovery after decades of addiction. Others return after relapse or after years of trying to manage alone. The landowner keeps going out. God’s invitation remains.

Saint Paul writes in the second reading, “For to me life is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). Recovery eventually leads us beyond measuring ourselves against one another. Our deepest question is not whether we are doing better or worse than someone else, but whether our lives are becoming more rooted in Christ.

There is no shortage of mercy in God’s vineyard. Whether we arrived early or late, the invitation is the same: receive what God is giving, do the work placed before us, and learn to rejoice when grace finds someone else too.

Reflection Questions

• Where has comparison been making you less grateful for the grace God is already giving you?
• Do you tend to believe that you have worked hard enough to deserve more, or that you have failed too much to receive what God wants to give?
• What would it look like this week to receive your own place in God’s vineyard with gratitude and genuinely rejoice in another person’s progress?

Sunday Mass Readings

First Reading: Isaiah 55:6-9
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18
Second Reading: Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a
Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16a

Download printable meeting reflections:
General Recovery  |  Recuperación General
Family & Friends Recovery  |  Recuperación para Familiares
Lust Addiction Recovery  |  Recuperación de Adicción Sexual
ACDH Recovery  |  Recuperación HAHD

Download virtual meeting reflections:
General Recovery  |  Recuperación General
Family & Friends Recovery  |  Recuperación para Familiares
Lust Addiction Recovery  |  Recuperación de Adicción Sexual
ACDH Recovery  |  Recuperación HAHD

(d.1791-1867) — Hundreds of Korean martyrs are remembered today. They were priests, missionaries, and lay people, men and women, young and old. The Christian community in Korea “was founded entirely by lay people. This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution. Thus, in less than a century, it could already boast of some ten thousand martyrs” (Pope Saint John Paul II, canonization homily, May 6, 1984). Saints Andrew and Paul were leaders in the budding community. Andrew, the first Korean priest, was tortured and beheaded in 1846. Paul was a lay leader who was martyred in 1839.

How hard are we willing to fight for our faith? How hard are we willing to fight for our recovery? Both thrive in community. What can we do today to strengthen these communities where we live?

“Saint Peter writes: ‘You were ransomed…not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ’. To this lofty price, to this price of the Redemption, your Church desires, on the basis of the witness of the Korean Martyrs, to add an enduring witness of faith, hope and charity” (Pope Saint John Paul II, canonization homily, May 6, 1984).

Reflection by Brad Farmer