Catholic Homilies for 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 1 Thess 1:1-5b Matthew 22:15-21 Over 40 homilies each week from Catholic clergy, including Fr. Mike Schmitz, Bishop Robert Barron, Fr. Tony Kadavil and others.

Homilies

Homilies

October 18, 2026

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29th Sunday of Year A

Papal Homilies / Catechism

29th Sunday of Year A

Featured Homilies

Deacon Peter McCulloch

29th Sunday of Year A

Bishop Robert Barron

29th Sunday of Year A

▶️ Does It Matter What You Believe?

Friends, a great theme of the Bible is that of God’s chosen people. At the same time, we also see that God’s salvific plan has to do with all of humanity—and indeed with all of creation. God chooses Israel—and the New Israel, the Church—precisely for the sake of the whole world. Remembering this helps us keep the delicate balance between bland spiritual relativism and a dangerous religious tribalism.

Watch the video, then dive deeper with TWTW study materials below:

  • Visuals: 5 companion infographics to follow along with the message
  • Transcript: Full sermon text for reading and reference
  • Discussion Guide: 25 questions tailored for small groups and classrooms

In the News

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29th Sunday of Year A

Beyond Anxiety

The Vineyard and
Our Tools

At every turning point in human history, a deep, quiet spiritual crisis is exposed: the temptation to mistake what we do for who we are, and the recurring fear that new human inventions will displace the divine spark within us.

In Germany, around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg altered civilization by introducing the movable-type printing press. Adapting the wooden screw press used in Rhineland vineyards to crush grapes, he turned an agricultural tool into an engine of thought. Before then, scribes painstakingly copied manuscripts by hand. When a machine produced in thirty seconds what took a trained hand three days, panic ensued. Scribe guilds lobbied authorities, warning that the machine was dangerous, imprecise, and an existential threat to authentic scholarship. Church critics worried that pre-printed collections of sermons would foster intellectual laziness, fearing priests would cease praying over the Scriptures and merely recite words off a page without pastoral care. Instead of diminishing the Word, the press distributed it into eager hands everywhere.

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AI IS THE NEW PRINTING PRESS (5:26)

The Anxiety of Change

Yet this anxiety was far from new. For the first millennium of the Church, musical instruments were largely barred from the liturgy. The early Church Fathers associated them with pagan excess. As late as the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas noted that the Church avoided instruments lest the liturgy imitate temple ceremonies rather than relying on the pure human voice. The underlying fear was simple: how could a soulless apparatus of bellows, wood, and pipes express authentic human prayer? Critics feared the machine would drown out genuine faith.

“When the daguerreotype emerged in 1839, the painter Paul Delaroche cried out, 'From today, painting is dead.'”

A similar crisis of authenticity unfolded in the nineteenth century with the advent of photography. When the daguerreotype emerged in 1839, the painter Paul Delaroche cried out, "From today, painting is dead." Religious critics went further, calling the capture of light by chemistry and mirrors blasphemous, arguing that man was made in the image of God and that divine reality could not be captured by a mechanical contraption. They feared it would replace the divine inspiration of human sacred art with soulless optical reproduction.

Tenants in the Master's Field

“A landowner prepares a magnificent estate—he clears the stones, plants choice vines, hedges it about, digs a winepress, and builds a watchtower.”

This exact pattern of defensive possessiveness lies at the heart of our Scripture readings. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the tenants in the vineyard. A landowner prepares a magnificent estate—he clears the stones, plants choice vines, hedges it about, digs a winepress, and builds a watchtower. He spares no resource, entrusts the entire gift to tenants, and journeys abroad.

Yet when harvest arrives and the owner sends servants to collect the rightful produce, the tenants turn violent. They beat one, stone another, and murder the heir himself, thinking, "Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance." They forgot the fundamental truth of their existence: they were tenants, not owners. The vineyard was an entrusted grace, not an empire for self-preservation. When disruption and accountability arrived, they chose violent clinging over righteous stewardship.

Isaiah sings the very same sorrow in his Song of the Vineyard. God planted a choice hillside, expecting a harvest of sweet grapes, but the soil yielded only bitter, wild fruit. The Lord looked for justice—mishpat—but saw bloodshed; for righteousness—tzedakah—but heard a cry of distress. The landowner provided every necessary implement and structure so the vines could flourish. Yet the tragic failure was not a defect in the hedge, the tower, or the winepress; the failure lay in what the tenants chose to yield. The tools and infrastructure were fully provided, but tools cannot manufacture the moral and spiritual fruit that only a faithful human heart can render to God.

From the Altar to the Kitchen Sink

“Over centuries of prayerful discernment, the Church discovered that human tools do not destroy sacred vocations; they clarify them. The pipe organ did not silence the congregation; it supported and sustained the people's voices...”

Over centuries of prayerful discernment, the Church discovered that human tools do not destroy sacred vocations; they clarify them. Throughout history, our recurring error has been mistaking the mechanical instrument for the fruit itself. The pipe organ did not silence the congregation; it supported and sustained the people's voices, leading the Second Vatican Council to praise it as an instrument that "adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God."

Photography did not kill art; it freed painters from mere optical reproduction to explore mystery and emotion. The Church embraced the camera: Pope Pius IX used portraits to unite a global flock, and the photographic negative of the Shroud of Turin became an enduring aid to contemplation. In our own era, when handheld calculators entered classrooms, critics warned that mathematical thinking would perish. Instead, removing the drudgery of rote arithmetic allowed students to engage higher-order calculus and engineering.

We see this exact transformation not just in grand history, but right inside our own homes. Consider the domestic revolutions of the last century: the washing machine, the dishwasher, the microwave, the vacuum. Before these appliances, keeping a household running consumed endless, backbreaking hours—hauling buckets of water, boiling linens over fires, tending wood stoves, and scrubbing plates until late into the night. When those machines entered the home, they were not meant to replace the warmth of home life; they were designed to absorb the drudgery of daily survival.

The dishwasher was never built to love our children, and a microwave cannot tuck anyone into bed. But by washing the dishes and warming a meal in minutes rather than hours, they quietly grant us a gift far more precious than mechanical efficiency: the gift of time. They free us from being chained to the kitchen sink so that we can step into the living room, sit on the floor to play with our grandchildren, linger across the dinner table in genuine conversation with a spouse, or truly listen to a family member who had a difficult day. In scriptural terms, they clear the briars and thorns of sheer survival so that the domestic church can actually bear the choice grapes of charity, presence, and familial love.

Guarding the Soul for the Harvest

“Virtue, compassion, and divine love are not algorithmic functions. God never created you to be a biological copying press or a mechanical calculator. He placed you in His vineyard to bear the fruit of the Spirit. ”

Today, artificial intelligence brings us to that same threshold. Tools now summarize, analyze, cross-reference, and draft faster than any human hand. The instinctive reaction is fear: If a machine can perform this labor, what becomes of my worth?

The answer lies in understanding the limits of the instrument. AI is simply the modern concordance, the modern printing press, the calculator for language and research—or in the imagery of Matthew 21, the modern winepress and watchtower. It is equipment given to the tenant to help tend the soil. AI cannot pray. It cannot experience the mercy of the confessional. It cannot shed a tear at a graveside. It cannot love, repent, or offer forgiveness. But when it handles the administrative arithmetic—drafting schedules, organizing research, or lifting the paralysis of a blank page—the intellect is not atrophying. It is freed for higher-order discernment.

Most importantly, this technology reclaims our time for the true work of the vineyard. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus warns of tenants who became so obsessed with control, self-preservation, and possessing the vineyard for themselves that they neglected their one true task: handing over the harvest to the Master in its proper season. When administrative burdens, endless desk work, and daily mechanics consume our lives, pastoral care and authentic human presence wither. We become like those anxious, defensive tenants, clinging to the tasks and the stones of the estate, producing only the wild, sour grapes of exhaustion and isolation.

If modern tools can assemble routine tasks in moments, those hours can be returned to where Christ commands: sitting at the bedside of the suffering, counseling the brokenhearted, being fully present with our families, and walking out into our communities to encounter those drifting in loneliness.

This is why Saint Paul’s counsel to the Philippians speaks directly to our technological transition: "Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Paul urges us to fix our gaze on what actually matters: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

Virtue, compassion, and divine love are not algorithmic functions. God never created you to be a biological copying press or a mechanical calculator. He placed you in His vineyard to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Let the tools do what tools were made to do. Cast your anxieties upon God, anchor your dignity in Whose you are, and step out into the field to offer back a harvest worthy of His grace.

This essay based on this Sunday's readings and current events was developed collaboratively using artificial intelligence alongside human pastoral curation and theological editing. It is not intended as a finished script, but as a catalyst to spark reflection, provide thematic inspiration, and support preachers in crafting their own authentic homilies for their communities.

The Anxiety of Change
Tenants in the Master’s Field
From the Altar to the Kitchen Sink
Guarding the Soul for the Harvest

Fr. Mike Schmitz

29th Sunday of Year A

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SUNDAYS WITH ASCENSION (2023): Fr. Mike Schmitz is the chaplain for the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) and serves as the Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese of Duluth.

▶️ Every Step

When a person is lost, it can feel like every step is taking them further and further away from where they need to be. But with Christ, we trust in the promise that we are not lost, but led…and that every step is taking us closer to where and who we need to be. Feeling lost often comes from demanding certainty about God’s plan, yet God reveals our vocation in His timing. In the wilderness between the promise and fulfillment, we aren’t lost—we are being led. Every delay, trial, and duty trains us, requiring endurance in hope to form who we are called to be.

Fr. Michael Chua

29th Sunday of Year A

Dominican Blackfriars

29th Sunday of Year A

Fr. Austin Fleming

29th Sunday of Year A

Monsignor Peter Hahn

29th Sunday of Year A

Fr. Charles E. Irvin

29th Sunday of Year A

Fr. Tommy Lane

29th Sunday of Year A

Fr. Langeh, CMF

29th Sunday of Year A

Msgr. Charles Pope

29th Sunday of Year A

Father Kevin Rettig

29th Sunday of Year A

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Fr. George Smiga

29th Sunday of Year A

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