The Eucharist is food given to us to sustain us on our journey through this dark valley. Heaven is a feast because heaven is nothing other than perfect union with God in Christ. There in that garden of repose we will truly have our fill, not of bread and wine, but of eternal life.

The people of Israel remain God’s chosen and cherished vineyard, only that vineyard has now been expanded, with new peoples grafted on to the vines. The vineyard now includes not only those genetically descended from Jacob, but people from every race and nation, as was prophesied by Isaiah (and others) in the Old Testament.

Those who say “it’s all about the journey” are only half right. The journey matters because we are going somewhere. If we want to get to the destination we desire — heaven and not hell — then the direction we travel makes all the difference in the world.

Whether we give our lives to Christ in infancy and never fall from grace, or experience a death-bed conversion after a lifetime of sin, salvation is a gift. This helps us to make sense of the parable of the workers in the vineyard we find in the gospel for this Sunday (Mt 20:1-16).

God has already forgiven all of our sins. He did that on the cross. It’s a done deal. We don’t need to earn His forgiveness. So why repent? Why go to confession? We do that in order to receive the benefit of God’s forgiveness, which is reconciliation.