As with the rich young man, so with our parable today: the reward of the Christian life, the one thing for which we ought to desire and labor before all else, is God. Whether you are the greatest of all the saints since Our Lady, or the very least of all the saints that squeaked into Heaven after a long purgatory, there is no special trophy for first. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one,” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). Everyone who makes it to Heaven, be they first or last, receives the same reward: God Himself. Just as those who labored in the vineyard of today’s Gospel receive the same wage whether they labored hard all day in the heat, or labored only for an hour in the cooler part of the day, the martyr, the virgin, the priest, the pauper, the death-bed convert, and anyone else who finishes the race will receive the same wage, the same prize.
This may strike us as somewhat wrong or unjust; should not those who suffer and struggle more for God receive a greater reward than the others? Perhaps, but what reward is greater than God? What more could God give us than His very self?
However, here is where the difference lies: once the laborers in our Gospel get over the fact that those who labored only a little were paid the same as those who labored all day, who do you believe, ultimately, will appreciate their pay more? Similarly, in Heaven, while we all receive God as our reward our capacity to receive Him and our ability to enjoy and know Him will vary according to our love for Him and how we lived our life with Him in such a way as to grow in our capacity. We see this in natural relationships as well: the capacity a man has to love his wife is far greater than the capacity his wife’s best friend has to love her, or a coworker. Yet the coworker does not feel cheated, nor does the friend; each has a different capacity that can grow or lessen depending upon the nature and quality of the relationship. Which is the more full: the thimble filled to the brim with water, or the chalice filled likewise to its brim?
As we consider our own capacity to love God, let us reflect on how we might grow in that capacity. Let us not see our fellow Christian as competition, but as others running the race for the same trophy, the same reward. For if the reward is God, then the reward is infinite; no one person will beat us to the end and take home the sole prize, for there is more than enough of Him to fill every heart not merely to the brim, but to overflowing.