28th Sunday Ordinary Time – Year A

Deacon Tom Vert

Preached: October 11, 2026

As many of you know, deacons are not allowed to hear confessions, however, it doesn’t stop people from sharing their thoughts, feelings and emotions with me, which is a trueprivilege of my vocation.

It is interesting to me that some of these interactions have this theme of unworthiness that come forward. I will be at a wedding reception, or at the grocery store, and people will say things like:
“I am sorry I have not been to church in a while” or “I’m not a good Catholic these days” or “I try my best, but I struggle with religion.”

In various ways, they seem to struggle with the fact that in their minds they aren’t worthy, they are not good enough, and they feel ashamed of their place on the journey of the faith life.

However, you can see the pull of their heart to get back to a connection with God, and I always say that it is okay, we all struggle and they will find a way back when the time is right, and they will be welcomed with no judgement whenever they decide to come back.

As St. James say, “who am I to judge”?

Truthfully, I struggle with feeling this unworthiness in my own faith life, and sometimes I feel that one day the Bishop may realize how unworthy I am and tell me to take some time off!

I know that I need God to walk the journey as I cannot do it on my own strength and I will let you in on a small secret…each time I preach, I say a prayer to God “Lord, I am not worthy to proclaim your word and preach to your people, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, please make me worthy.”

I think we all struggle with our self-perception of how we are doing in our spiritual life, and the gospel today makes us think of this theme as we hear the king say to his servants “those who were invited were not worthy to come” and the guest without the proper wedding garment thrown out of the banquet.

We may hear this and think that we can never be good enough to join the wedding feast, we will be like the camel who can’t make it through the “eye of the needle”. Life can be a real struggle, and it is easy to believe that we are failing, we don’t measure up, we aren’t praying enough, or praying in the right way, or maybe we are comparing ourselves to others and thinking that “if only I was a good a Christian as that
person”, but none of these mirror what God truly thinks, as this thinking of our unworthiness could not be more wrong!

God instead is the Father who runs to meet us on the road home as the Prodigal Son who also said to his father “I am not worthy.”

From the same Gospel story we heard today in the version from Luke, we hear who God is looking for “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.”

The Good News is we are all invited to the feast!! With our spiritual blindness, or crippled prayer life, we are still summoned!

The first reading tells us the feast is for all peoples, and all nations and God will tell us how worthy we are as He will “wipe away the tears from every face” and remove the blame and sin of each person who comes to Him with an open heart and the willingness to come close. We hear the joy of Isaiah as he tells us this is the God who saves us, who loves us, and let us rejoice and be glad!

The psalm echoes this as we hear the familiar words, the Lord is my Shepherd, he leads me, he refreshes me, guides and anoints me as one of His children! There is no shame here, but only support and love!

We are worthy of God’s love as He created us, He loves us and no matter what life throws at us, St. Paul tells us, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me…my God will fully supply whatever we need.”

So as each day unfolds, and we start to doubt God’s presence as we struggle, let us remember His Love and not think, “Lord, I am not worthy”