Msgr. Charles Pope urges readers to tend their own vineyard

Msgr. Charles Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter–St. Cyprian Catholic Church¹ in Washington, D.C., preached a homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. His homily draws on Isaiah’s vineyard, Jesus’ parable of the tenants and Paul’s letter to the Philippians².

The homily was preached for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. That Sunday fell on Oct. 4, 2026. The readings were Isaiah 5:1-7 and Philippians 4:6-9. The Gospel was the parable of the wicked tenants³. The passage appears in Matthew 21. It runs from verse 33 through verse 43. Pope was ordained in 1989, and he has led Bible studies in the U.S. Congress and at the White House in past years¹. He tells his hearers this was not the homily he woke up that morning planning to preach; he chose a more personal angle². The result is a homily that turns on the listener's own heart.

“And what you feed will grow. And what you starve will go away eventually.”

The vineyard and its fruit

Msgr. Charles Pope starts his homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time where Isaiah starts: with a vineyard. The owner picks a fertile hillside, clears it, plants it with choice vines and builds a watchtower to guard it. Then the vines yield wild, sour grapes. Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter–St. Cyprian Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., hears in Isaiah God's own question: what more could I have done?

He answers it from the story of Israel. God led his people out of Egypt, fed them with manna, brought water from the rock, and gave them the law and the prophets. Pope says love cannot be forced; each person must choose it freely. In Pope's telling, the Lord's exasperation comes down to one diagnosis: the problem is stubbornness and resistance to bearing fruit.

Jesus carries the same warning into the parable of the tenants, Pope says, and ends with the kingdom being given to a people who will yield its fruit. Pope stops to rule out a misreading. He says the parable is not anti-Jewish, pointing to Romans 9–11 and to the fact that the first converts were Jews. The warning, he says, is about us.

He then names the fruit God looks for: justice, love, chastity, mercy, forgiveness, love of enemies, generosity to the poor, and care for one's own family. Every grace needed to bear it is available, Pope says. What remains is on us.

Here Pope turns to St. Paul. In Philippians 4 the apostle tells the Church to think on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and gracious. No one else can weed it or plant it for you. "And what you feed will grow. And what you starve will go away eventually."² He draws on Galatians 6: whoever sows in the flesh reaps corruption, and whoever sows in the Spirit reaps a beautiful harvest.

Pope applies the image to ordinary habits. He warns against doom-scrolling, the steady feeding of the mind on bad news and anger. He warns as well against hating the other side. Believers must still insist on what is right, he says, but they are to try to love the people who oppose them.

He closes with the Song of Songs, where the speaker was made keeper of other people's vineyards and did not keep her own. That makes the Gospel personal. The vineyard in the parable, Pope says, is the one each listener carries, and the task is to tend it.

His last words are a prayer. He asks that our own vineyard be sown with good seeds. He urges listeners to dwell on what is excellent or worthy of praise and to “think on these things because that is what's best for us.”

Pope’s own words

Pope's own lines, as preached, put the choice to each hearer. Pope tells his hearers the warning is not about someone else; of "those Jewish people of old," he says, "That's us, too." He acknowledges real political differences in the country, then says "we also got to stop all this hatred of the other side." He closes with a line from the Song of Songs: "They made me a keeper of vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept²."

Pope puts responsibility for a world in disrepair back on those listening, and he says God has given them freedom, intellect and will. "It's not God's fault that the world's in disrepair," he says. He casts each person's heart as a vineyard and assigns the roles plainly: "You're the steward really and he's the owner." Pope says, “loving other people doesn't mean just affirming everything they do.”²

Faith at home

Among the fruits Msgr. Charles Pope says God looks for, one belongs to every household: "taking care of my family." Pope puts that work in each hearer's hands, telling them they are the steward of their own heart while God is the owner². Family Brief carries this homily because faith is at the center of family life for the families it serves.

More from Pope

Readers who want more of Msgr. Charles Pope's preaching can start with his blog, Community in Mission, which carries a written homily for the 27th Sunday of the Year titled "Sinner Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass." That post reads the same vineyard parable in sections he calls the sowing, the seeking and the sinning, and it states that "Jesus says clearly that the Kingdom of God can be taken from us for our refusal to accept its fruits in our life⁴."

For listening, Spotify carries a podcast, Homilies of Monsignor Charles Pope, described as "Homilies and theological explications from Monsignor Charles Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter-Saint Cyprian Roman Catholic Church in Washington, D.C⁵."

Sources

1. Monsignor Charles Pope - Community in Mission
2. Msgr. Charles Pope, homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, as preached (Oct. 2026): full transcript of his YouTube recording (auto-captions, supplied by publisher Martin Avila)
3. Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A | Loyola Press
4. Sinner Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass - A Homily for the 27th Sunday of the Year - Community in Mission
5. Homilies of Monsignor Charles Pope | Podcast on Spotify