Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – 27th September 2026
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today’s Gospel is short, but it asks us a serious question: what value do our words have if they are not followed by actions?
A father says to his first son, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He replies, “I will not,” but later changes his mind and goes. The father makes the same request of his second son. He answers, “I will, sir,” but does not go. Jesus asks which son carried out the father’s will. The answer is clear: the first.
The first son was wrong in what he said, but he corrected his words through his actions. The second spoke beautifully, but his words remained empty. God does not look only at what we say; he also looks at the way we live.
We, too, can resemble the second son. We say, “Yes, Lord, I believe in you,” but sometimes live as though God did not exist. We pray, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,” yet may hold on to resentment for years. We say that we love our family, but find no time to listen to them. We promise that we will change, pray more, or leave behind a harmful habit, but keep postponing it.
Jesus does not say this to condemn us, but to awaken us. The beauty of the first son is that he does not remain a prisoner of his wrong answer. He had said no, but he thinks again and goes to work. Here lies the hope of the Gospel: a “no” spoken yesterday can become a “yes” lived today. We are not defined forever by our worst mistake. God always gives us the possibility of getting up and beginning again.
Saint Peter confidently told Jesus, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” Yet a few hours later, he denied him three times. But Peter wept, returned to Jesus and eventually gave his life for him. His holiness does not mean that he never failed; it means that he did not allow failure to have the final word.
The same is true for us. Perhaps we promised to be more patient and lost our temper again. Perhaps we resolved to leave a sin behind and then fell once more. We must not say, “There is no point trying.” Today we can begin again. God does not ask us to pretend that we have never fallen; he asks us not to remain on the ground.