25th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026 - Deathbed Repentance (Brideshead Revisited)

 

While on vacation this summer, I reread one of my favorite books: the most well-known novel by Catholic Author Evelyn Waugh titled Brideshead Revisited, the Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. The book has had several tv and movie adaptations. I recommend the 1981 tv adaptation. It’s 11 hours, but 11 hours well spent.

The book begins with the titular character, Charles Ryder, a Captain in the British Army during World War II encamped on a large estate—a in the British countryside called Brideshead. This was not his first visit to Brideshead. He had been there many times before in his university days at Oxford, when he had befriended the son of the wealthy English Lord and owner of Brideshead, Lord Marchmain.

Throughout the story Captain Ryder looks back upon the happiness and grief and drama and grace he encountered there. He revisits his memories, hence the title, “Brideshead Revisited”

In the course of the novel Lord Marchmain is revealed to be a real scoundrel. The Lord has estranged himself from his devout Catholic family and was living in Venice, sharing a roof with his Italian mistress—living a truly profane lifestyle, devoid of all religion, focused on the pursuit of carnal pleasure, as if he were intentionally trying to flee from God.

But God’s grace breaks in at the climax of the story, Lord Marchmain, having reached the end of his life, returns to Brideshead and to his family in order to die in his ancestral home and with the people he once cherished.

Marchmain’s devout family sends for a priest to absolve the dying Lord of his sins and to administer the last rites, but Marchmain, still running away from God, sends the priest away. This grieves the family, of course, as this rejection of the priest and rejection of contrition, is akin to rejecting God. And so they worry for Marchmain’s eternal soul. So, the family fasts and prays assiduously. Marchmain grows so weak, he cannot open his eyes.

Hoping for a miracle, the family summons the priest once again. And then the miracle occurs! As the priest offers the final prayers, Marchmain lifts his arm to make the sign of the cross, and he died with God’s mercy. Personally, in my ministry, I have witnessed similar circumstances, where someone who had been unresponsive for days, opens their eyes and prays before dying in Christ’s peace.

I always think of that scene in relation to the Gospel passage for this weekend. For, in the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the Lord conveyed a number of very important lessons about accepting the invitation of God’s grace before the day runs out.

The first lesson is that that grace is available to everyone. This would be a difficult lesson for Jesus’ Jewish audience. For the Jews possessed a very special relationship with God throughout human history, stretching back thousands of years. They were like those workers who had been working in the vineyard since the beginning of the work day. And this parable challenged to accept that God’s grace and full membership in his kingdom would be available to newcomers. Gentiles.

Secondly, the parable reminds us that people accept God’s invitation at different times in their lives. Infants and babies and young children, who are baptized early in life, they are brought into God’s grace in their early years. Some souls accept the invitation only after their rebellious teenage years. For some people, it takes hitting rock bottom due to an addiction, where they realize that God is calling them to break the cycle of self-destruction. For some, conversion comes after a major crisis, like a death of a loved one, that they realize they need to accept God’s invitation before it is too late. And for some, like Lord Marchmain, it is on the death bed, where God, the fisherman, makes that final tug of the line, gives that final opportunity to accept his grace.

Here is a reminder then, that we are to never stop inviting souls to Christ. We shouldn’t assume that just because someone was hardened to God in the past, they remain hardened. The Lord is no doubt working in the lives of all people, to soften their hearts to the invitation.

Thirdly, this parable reminds all of us to ensure that we live and die in God’s friendship. For the work day does in fact come to a close. The sun finally does set. Human life and human history will come to an end. And for those souls who do not accept the invitation to work for God by life’s end, there will be eternal consequences.

Scripture is clear, the Catechism is clear. If we insist on rejecting God’s grace in this life, we condemn ourselves to hell, forever.

One of the great pains of those in hell is that they know they rejected the invitation of God, they know things could have been different, and they know it’s all their fault. So, we should urge souls not to put off conversion, lest death find them unrepentant.

If you have unconfessed serious sins and mortal sins. Please go to confession immediately. Don’t put it off. God is kind and merciful, but He has made known that he wants sins repented of and absolved as soon as possible.

Today’s Gospel is also a good reminder to make sure your family knows that when you are laying on your deathbed, they should call for a priest. Dear ones, it is not a burden to come to your death bed to offer you the Last Rites. This is why I was ordained. This is why the Bishop sent me to you. So that you could have access to the sacraments. All the other stuff is secondary to ensure that you live and die in God’s friendship, with your sins absolved.

If you are in the hospital, please call for the Catholic priest on duty. If you are in your home, please call your parish.

Finally, our Gospel, along with our first reading urge us, to seek the Lord, and work for the Lord as best as we possibly can at whatever stage we are in life. Whether we are children, teens, young adults, middle age, or seniors. God has work for all of us, no matter our age. If you don’t know what that work is, start with prayer. A good daily prayer for each and everyone of us is “Lord, help me to be faithful in all of the work you have for me today. Help me to be faithful to those opportunities you give me to serve your kingdom. Help me to use my abilities in your service. Show me how I can serve you with more and more of my soul and strength, that at the end of life, I may be counted among your faithful servants, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.”