Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/20/26 Blind Spots: Entitlement

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

Homily from the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. God does not owe me anything. Entitlement does not always look like entitlement. Sometimes, it simply feels like getting what we deserve. Whether it comes from pride or pain, we can believe that we are owed more. But grace is, by definition, an undeserved gift. The cure for entitlement is to stop asking what we are owed and to start asking what God has entrusted to us...and then receive it with gratitude. Mass Readings from September 20, 2026: Isaiah 55:6-9 Psalm 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a Matthew 20:1-16a

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you.

and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel, according to Matthew. Chapter 20, verses 1 through 16. Jesus told his disciples this parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about 9 o'clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, you two go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.

So they went off. and he went out again around noon and around three o'clock and did likewise. Going out about five o'clock, the landowner found others standing around and said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They answered because no one has hired us. He said to them, you two, go into the vineyard. When it was evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.

When those who had started about five o'clock came, each received the usual daily wage so when the first came they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And now receiving it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, these last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who bore the day's burden and the heat. He said to one of them in reply, my friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?

or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last will be first and the first will be last. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Wait to have a seat. So a number of years ago, I was talking with a missionary, one of our missionaries, and she shared that when she was at training,

we have focused missionaries. Focus stands for the Fellowship of Catholic University students. And so every year we have at least four missionaries, two guys and two girls. This year we have two guys and three girls. They're great. This is a former missionary. And she was talking about how she was at training. Training at that time was all down at Ave Maria in Florida.

So summertime, Avi Maria, Florida, deep Florida, super hot. And she talked about how they were living on this college campus for the summer and they had to go from place to place across campus. And they also had to wear business casual. And so dressed up Florida heat crossing campus. One day, she had to go all the way across campus. And she spotted one of those, you know, some campuses have, or some cities have these of those free bikes you can just take and rent or just take and ride. And so she saw this bike.

And she was making a beeline towards this bike. And she was going to get on it because she had to ride across the campus. She had to go super far. This other girl came out of nowhere, another missionary, comes out of nowhere, takes the bike and rides off. And she was so mad. This missionary was so mad. And she just, man, she realized this girl didn't even have to go as far as she had to go.

She had to go all the way across campus. She knew this other girl. destination, she knew that she didn't have to go as far. So she's huffing up cross campus. She arrives at the thing, at wherever she was going. And she's huffing and puffing, and she's sweating. And she's morning and growing in kind of a situation. And this, another young woman, a missionary, who was her mentor.

It was like, what's going on? Like, what happened to you? She sees her all drenched and sweat and also kind of this, you know, sour look on her face. And she tells her the whole story. She's like, you know, I had to walk all the way across campus. It's so hot outside. I had this bike.

It was my bike. This other girl came. She took it. She didn't have to go as far. And she even said that. She said, she said, I deserve that bike. And at that moment, her mentor stopped her. And she said, I have to stop you. That is one word. That's one word that does not belong. That's one word that has no place in the vocabulary of a Christian. A couple of weeks ago, we started a new series called Blind Spots. And it's kind of loosely based off of Psalm 19. In Psalm 19, the psalmist says, from hidden faults, equip me, oh God. So what are blind spots?

Blind spots are those sins that we know they're there. We just ignore them. They're the way you might call acceptable sins. They're not small sins, but they are sins that we've given ourselves socially acceptable excuses that we can have. Again, they're not sins that we hide from because we're ashamed of. There are sins that kind of hide themselves from us. So there are these invisible vices.

And so we talked two weeks ago about gossip. Usually we were just okay with that. Last week talked about anger, how anger and wrath are hateful things but the sinner holds them tight. And this week, this week we're going to talk about one of those blind spots that can become just a part of the air that we breathe. And you can see it in the gospel today. Here's the gospel with this parable of the workers. And we saw it, heard it very clear. The people who worked the very beginning of the day, they agreed for the usual daily wage.

The other people hired after them get paid exactly what they're going to get paid. So we literally just heard this a moment ago. They expected to get paid more. In this picture that Jesus gives us today, this picture is a rough picture of a tough blind spot because they got what they got, but they thought we deserve more. They got what they agreed to,

but they thought we deserve more. And the blind spot we're talking about today, the blind spot we're talking about is the blind spot of entitlement. I think a lot of times when we think about entitlement, we maybe immediately jump to people who have like obvious privilege, like those massively, massively wealthy people who have this problem of like, what do I do with all my wealth?

Or maybe they think that because of their wealth, they're better than others. And so their privilege is I deserve more because I'm special. And that's not false because the reality, of course, is that there are numerous stories of people who, whose, you know, parents or grandparents or great grandparents, like amassed a lot of wealth. and then their kids or their grandkids or their great-grandkids just had tragic lives.

There's a story of the Vanderbilt's, I think it's Cornelius Vanderbilt. He died in 1877 after having amassed this huge fortune. I think at his death, he was worth $100 million in 1877 money, which is worth roughly $3.2 billion in 2026 money. And he left it to his kids and their kids and their kids. And one of his great-grandkids was named, named Reginal Claypool Vanderbilt. And not too long after his great-grandfather had died, in 1901, he inherited all this money

at 21 years old. In fact, he inherited what is equivalent to $400 million in our money. And by the time he died, I think in his 40s, only 20-ish years later, he had lost it all. He had lost it all on gambling. He lost it all betting on horses. he lost it all in alcohol, and this extravagant living, and this danger of entitlement that's ready to be given so much, there's this danger, which is one of the reasons why I did some research

and some listening to people who have wealth. They've worked hard for their wealth, and they're realizing the danger of handing on their wealth to their kids just for free. The Vanderbiltz were one family that in the United States massed so much wealth. The Rockefellers, another family, that massed so much wealth. at one point J.D. Rockefeller the second, junior, when he died in 1928, he was worth roughly $20 billion. And he did not want his younger son, his son, J.D. Rockefeller, the third. He didn't

want him to go down that same road. So even at 14 years old, he gave J.D. Rockefeller, the third, an allowance every week. And the allowance was $1.50. But he said, okay, with that dollar and 50 cents, I need you to keep, you need to let me know exactly where you're spending this money, but I need you to do two things. I need you to at least give 20%, put 20% in savings, put 20% charity, and then keep an accounting of everything that you do with this money. He wanted to teach him the value of a dollar. I want to teach him the value of five cents. He must have done a decent job because when J.D. Rockefeller III died, I think it was in 1978. He hadn't lost it. What he had done is, at his death, upon his death, he gave away.

He had given away virtually all of his estate. He had given it away to charitable donations because his father wanted to teach his son the Valley of a Dollar. In fact, I remember coming across, I think Warren Buffett, it was Warren Buffett had said, I don't want my kids to become entitled. And so his thought was he said, okay, give your kids enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they don't have to do, that they can do nothing. And I thought, okay, that's because why? Because there's a danger in that world of entitlement. And yet at the same time, the danger of entitlement. is in every one of our hearts.

You don't have to be privileged. You don't have to be wealthy. I feel like you deserve something. I mean, how many times I mentioned driving last week? How many times out on the road? You're in a traffic jammer. There's all these cars in the road. And you're like, what the heck?

So these people realize, I have somewhere to go. And you have to pause and say, wait, everyone out here has somewhere to go. That's why they're in a car right now on the road. It's because you're not special. I'm not special. Everyone has somewhere to go. Maybe you've had one of those days

where you've taken a day off of work during the week and go to some place like where you go to a restaurant, go to a park, maybe amusement park, go to the gym in the middle of the day and is packed. You're aggrieved and offended. Like, why are all these people here? It's the middle of the day. Don't they have jobs? No, they realize it. And we have the sense of someone's getting more than me or I'm not getting what I deserve. Again, this is the gospel. And the gospel today, They're upset because they're no longer happy with what they agreed to. Why? Because someone else is getting the same thing for less.

So whatever they're getting, they're not happy with it anymore. In fact, there was a survey done in 2025 just last year in New Zealand. It was a longitudinal study. And it was, they discovered this. They discovered a relationship between entitlement and feeling financially deprived in relation to other people. The idea is this, if someone else has more or if someone else receives the same with less effort, then my situation must be unfair.

Which is literally out of the gospel today. And it's out of all of our lives. I remember a number of years ago, a friend of a friend. A friend of mine had a friend who was dying from cancer or had cancer. And she said, hey, could you give her a call? I think she would really benefit from just like, you know, praying with her, walk with her, talk with her a bit. So, of course, I called up and we talked a bunch.

And she was, again, she was feeling grieved at this, not just sad about the fact that she had cancer and she could be facing an early death, but this kind of sense of injustice about this thing. Like, I deserve to live more. And so we were talking about this. And at the time, my mom was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she was living with it. And I was just trying to offer, as I listened to her, I tried to offer, well, my mom's perspective is this, you know, trying to give from someone who's living it another perspective. And her response was very fascinating.

Her response was, well, wait, well, how old is she? And I was like, well, my mom's in her 70s. She's like, well, yeah, I'm just in my 40s. So I get to be grieved. Why? Because your mom got 30 more years than me. I deserve those 30 extra years. And that's a kind of entitlement.

Someone else is getting more than me. Again, there's a couple different kinds of entitlement. There are some kinds of entitlement that we say this. I deserve this because I'm special. I worked hard. like in the gospel. We worked hard all day. I deserve this.

I deserve this because I'm special. I'm smart. I deserve this. Why? Because I'm a good person. I deserve this. Why? Because I'm better.

You know, in fact, there was another study that's in 2015. And they studied almost like 700 kids and their parents. And they found that a number of kids who were told that they were loved had a great sense of self-confidence, great sense of self-esteem. But those kids who were not only told that they were loved, they were also told that they were special. And not only that they were special, but they were told in a certain way by their parents' words and their actions,

that because they were special, they outranked other people, had a marked sense of entitlement over those who were simply told that they were loved. Those who were loved had great self-confidence. Those who were told that they outranked others, that they're being loved, meant they were entitled, had an increased sense of entitlement. And that's one kind of entitlement. I deserve this because I'm special. But there's another kind that's just as real. And maybe it's even more insidious.

It's, I deserve because I've suffered. There's the, I'm owed because I have, but there's also, I'm owed because I don't have. I've been overlooked. I didn't get what other people get. My life has been unfair. And because of that, I'm owed something. Because of that, I deserve. Last study of the morning, there's a study in 2010 by my name Zitek and his colleagues. And he said they found this.

They found that when they invited their patients, our subjects, to recall past unfair experiences, it increased their participants' sense of entitlement. So just simply remembering that at some point, someone or something was unfair to you. People had that sense of, not even that that person involved or that situation owed me something, but it increased an overall sense of being owed. Just simply remembering that I've lived through something unfair increased the idea that I deserve. So we realize this. We realize that entitlement can come from pride, but entitlement can also come from pain. And the common denominator is this, that my circumstances give me a special claim. I deserve.

That word, that word deserve. The word deserve has no place in the vocabulary of a missionary. That word deserve has no place in the vocabulary of a Catholic. The word deserve has no place in the vocabulary of a follower of Christ. In fact, there's a man next week he'll be beatified. soon to be blessed Fulton Sheen. The year he died, yeah, I believe it was his,

the last time he ever preached a Good Friday sermon in St. Pat's Cathedral in New York City, among many other powerful, beautiful things he said, he said this, he said, this is a quote from Archbishop Sheen. He said, honestly, look into your own heart. He said, I looked into mine.

I've had a great deal of suffering in the 83 years of my life, he said. Physical suffering, other suffering that should never have happened. that lasted over many years. Then he said, and yet as I look back, I know very well that I have never received the punishment that I deserve.

God has been easy with me. He's not laid on me the burdens that were ever equal to my failures. And if we look into our own soul, I think that we will also come to that conclusion. Deserve. God has never given me what I deserve. And the truth is this.

The truth is this. is, this is the hard truth of the day, but it's the hard truth that we need to get into our hearts. God does not owe me anything. God does not owe me anything. No matter how much I've worked, no matter how much I've prayed, no matter how much I've served, no matter how much I've suffered, God does not owe me anything. There's a Psalm that says, that says, the Lord is just in all his ways and loving in all his deeds. We have to ask the question, do I believe? Do I believe? that. I believe that the Lord is just in all, not just money at many of his days, many ways, or most of his ways, the Lord is just in all his ways.

It means he does not owe me anything. I was listening to a man who had served in the military and he had the opportunity to be up for selection, to get a promotion. And he was passed over. He said, not only was he passed over once, he was passed over multiple times before he finally got selected. And he said, he said this, but in that experience, I had to learn to pay attention to what you think getting passed over means. Because all of us have been in that situation. We've all been in this situation where it's, wait, am I not good enough? Am I not worthy?

I'm not being chosen. I'm not being blessed. I'm not being given an opportunity. And he says, we have to stop and pay attention to what we think getting passed over means. He said, it might mean that you're not ready. He said it might mean that someone else is more fitting. Someone else is more competitive. They got chosen.

It could mean that you lack a necessary quality, that something you need to fix. But he said this, but what it does not mean is that you are not worthy. He pointed out, he said, do not confuse non-selection with non-value. And this is what we have to do. We have to realize, God does not owe me anything. At the same time, remember the first reading from Isaiah,

God says this. He says, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. God does not owe me anything. I would, I bet you, please, sit with that right now. And let those words be in your mind, the truth. God does not owe me anything. This is a liberating truth.

Why? Because the parable today, all of Christianity is all about grace. And what is grace? Grace is literally an undeserved gift. So if I grew up for God and say, God, here's what I deserve. That is the opposite of grace.

It's the opposite of the parable today. The truth is this. The truth is you are loved. You are special. The truth is, you are unique and you probably have suffered. But remember that study in just in 2015. It wasn't the parents who said, because you're special, you're exempt, or because you're suffered, you're exempt.

It's the parents who said, no, you're loved. Full stop. You're loved. But the fact that your love does not mean you deserve anything. No one can lay claim to God's grace. We cannot deserve it. we can only accept it with responsibility and gratitude. And these are the two remedies for entitlement.

The two remedies for entitlement are responsibility and gratitude. Instead of saying, what do I deserve? Responsibility asks a different question. Responsibility asks the question, what has been entrusted to me? Not just what do I deserve, but what has been entrusted to me? And again, think about the parable today. the people who are hired at the beginning of the day, they got to work. Again, they weren't used.

Even the owner says, landowner says, I did not cheat you. Like, there was no injustice in this situation. They got the usual daily wage. They got paid the value of their work that day. But think about those others, multiple others were actually, it says, Jesus said, they were standing their idol. At the end of the day, why do you stand here idle all day? Imagine, imagine having to endure.

the pain of not being able to work, to endure the pain of standing idle all day versus the people who got hired at the beginning of the day and were entrusted with working in the vineyard. I may have shared this story before, but years, a number of summers ago, a really busy season. And it was a weekend where I was scheduled to fill in somewhere else and they canceled. They said, we don't need you. And it was too late to ask anyone else if they needed help. My family had all left. They were not in my hometown.

So I didn't go there. I just stayed in Duluth. Now, back up a little bit. At times, I would find myself leading up to this, I'd find myself, you know, freaking out on a Friday night on a Saturday morning. Wait, man, I would, this would annoy me a little bit. I get to a Friday morning, go to the gym, and they're like, happy Friday, it's only the weekends coming up. And I'm like, you know, the weekend is where I have to work hardest, you know. And so it was a situation where I would go down to a coffee shop on Saturday morning and work all day. I'm sweating. Literal tears at time, trying to write a homily. And they look down the little loft there, and people are like, they're playing

the crossword puzzle. They're reading a book for fun, and I'm like meanwhile, I'm studying all over the place. And I remember being so jealous of these people who just got to get up and have a relaxed Saturday morning. So here comes this one Saturday in the summer. I was in Duluth and had nothing to do. I had no responsibilities. I just got to be here in town. And so that's what I did. Friday, probably ordered a pizza, watched the movie. Saturday got up, went down to the coffee shop, not with any work, but just like, I get to read stuff. I get to play some games. I got to go for walks on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, I got up, said mass here by myself, more or less. A couple of students were here. And they got to have more walks, got to clean

the house. And by the, by son, it was great. But by Sunday night, I remember thinking, Lord, thank you so much for this free weekend. I don't think I need another one for a while. Because there's something great about being able to rest. It's so good. But there's also something that is so incredible about the fact that I've been entrusted with work. I have been entrusted by the Lord and the work itself is a gift. The people got to work in the vineyard, that work itself was a gift. So the question I get to ask is, what has been entrusted to me? This season, this day, what's been entrusted to do?

This work, this burden, this people. everything from the projects that are due for our students to a sick family member, to that parent in their old age that's been entrusted to you. That parent in their old age has been entrusted to you for this season. One of the remedies for entitlement is responsibility. What has been entrusted to me? And the other remedy is gratitude to be able to see what has been given. Be able to see the work that's been placed in front of us as,

a gift itself. That has, that itself has been a grace, not the reward of the work, but the work itself has been a gift. And to respond to that gift with gratitude is the cure for entitlement. To not focus on what I don't have, but to focus on what I've been given. And if I do that on a daily basis, if I do that in the ordinary ways, you and I become the kind of people who can do it, who can do that in the extraordinary ways. A while back, I came across a story. of a woman here is Martha Tennyson. Martha Tennyson is a preacher. I think she was the principal of a Christian school

that her husband was the pastor of the church there. And in 1988 down in Kentucky, that's where they lived. The church bus was in a crash. And in that crash, they lost 24 young people and three adults. Martha Tennyson tells the story. Years later, she tells the story. She said that. She said, we had a little.

told 24 sets of parents every 15 minutes that they lost a child. And she described one mom and dad that came in. They made an impression on her. She said, this is her quote. She said, they had a son, Billy, 17 years old, the only child they had. We called them in and we said, Bill and Maddie, our bus has been involved in a tragedy. And Billy went home to be with the Lord. She said, the father absolutely went to pieces, but the mother laid her hand over his shoulder and said, the first thing we must do is praise God for 17 wonderful years. God let us have him for 17 years. Martha said, she got up from where she was seated, came around the desk where I was seated with my husband.

She hugged me and made this statement. Sister Tennyson, I rejoice with you that your son made it. But God's grace will be sufficient for us. that woman, her name is Maddie. She could have responded with entitlement. She could have responded with resentment. She could have responded with anger and saying like, God deserved to, we deserve that God gave us more.

But she responded with responsibility and gratitude. We were entrusted with our son for 17 years. I thank God for every one of those 17 years that we got to take care of him. and raise him from a boy to a man. This is us, and this is what we need. There's one word that has no place in the vocabulary of a Christian, and that word is deserve, because God's grace is undeserved.

So our response to it is to say, God, what do you want me to do with what you've entrusted to me to say thank you?