Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 16, 2025
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
“What is your opinion?
A man had two sons.
He came to the first and said,
‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’
The son said in reply, ‘I will not,’
but afterwards he changed his mind and went.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order.
He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.
Which of the two did his father’s will?”
They answered, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you,
tax collectors and prostitutes
are entering the Kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness,
you did not believe him;
but tax collectors and prostitutes did.
Yet even when you saw that,
you did not later change your minds and believe him.”
Jesus asks the chief priests and elders, “What is your opinion?” and continues to instruct them with yet another question, “Which of the two did his father’s will?”
In today’s world, we have an abundance of opinions that influence our thoughts and imagination. We look to others to recommend to us how to live; how to improve our lives, with health plans, fitness plans, and finance plans, yet we are hesitant to allow God to guide us.
Friends, it is an act of God to instruct and instruction is found throughout the bible. It is in our entire salvation history that we hear God’s saving instruction developed, and it continues for us today. Divine teaching on how to live and what God requires is a gift. It is a grace from God that enables us to live fruitful lives.
In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds us of the importance of staying faithful to our Father’s will. The kingdom of God has broken into our reality at the first coming of Jesus, and today we faithfully wait for his second coming. For it is our loving friend Jesus who leads us and accompanies us in this way of life, on this journey together to heaven.
Remember that God does not demand what God does not enable, and the ability to follow is enabled by the Spirit of Christ. So friends, stay close to Jesus and pray for his Spirit to instruct you, guide you, and shape you into another Christ for this world.
Prayer
Like the second son in today’s gospel, Lord, we make promises that we do not keep. We get lazy or turn away from the work in the vineyard, which you ask us to do. Please give us another chance when we stumble, and usher us one day into your kingdom. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Blessed Mary of the Angels was a mystic nun from the 18th century whose life was marked by a number of supernatural experiences.
She is a distant cousin of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and was named Maria Fontanella when she was born in Turin in 1661. As a child, she was drawn to the religious life. At one point, she made a plan with a brother to run away and live in the desert. She began to receive visions in her dynamic prayer life.
At the age of 12, she entered a community of Cistercian nuns, but when her father died soon after, she returned home to help her mother. Still, she felt called to religious life, and at the age of 16 she joined a community of Carmelites in Turin and took the name Mary of the Angels.
She found life in a community of religious sisters to be difficult—she was very homesick and did not get along well with her novice-master—but she persevered. After seven years in the convent, she began to experience desolation in her prayer life—she was even attacked by demonic manifestations. She had a very capable spiritual director who helped her through this period, however, and after several years, she began to find peace and enter into even deeper levels of prayer.
Eventually, she was chosen to lead aspects of the community, and to become prioress of the convent. She established a new house for the community in another city, and wanted to move there, but the people of Turin would not hear of it. They valued her wisdom and would regularly consult her for advice.
She had a deep devotion to St. Joseph, and dedicated the city of Turin to him after his intercession helped save the city from being destroyed in a war with the French. She is depicted in this stained glass window asking St. Joseph for help.
One of the gifts of her faithfulness was a distinct odor that accompanied her in the last 20 years of her life. People described it as a scent of sanctity—it came from her body and spread to things she touched. The scent was a permanent condition after 1702, and was even difficult to remove from things that she had contacted. Her spiritual director, who later became archbishop, described it as a scent “neither natural nor artificial, nor like flowers or aromatic drugs or any mixture of perfumes, but only to be called an odor of sanctity.” Some of her relics still retain this scent today.
Blessed Mary of the Angels died on this date in 1717. Her relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, and she is depicted there in these stained glass windows. The foundry that created the stained glass windows of the Basilica was located in a former Carmelite convent in Le Mans, France—in the window shown here, the artists who adorned the Basilica pay homage to the community that gave the world holy people such as Blessed Mary of the Angels.
Blessed Mary of the Angels, you literally smelled like holiness and spread that scent to things you touched—pray for us!