This past Sunday, I arrived at Mass carrying more than I realized.

Actually, we arrived six or seven minutes late, which isn’t exactly the peaceful beginning to Mass that every Catholic parent dreams about. But my stress had started before we even left home.

My wife had given me some unexpected news about her student loans. She is a public school teacher and has been working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness. We had expectations about how things would go, but the news we received didn’t match those expectations.

Immediately, my mind started calculating: money, bills, food, gas, and the future.

I had already allowed myself to become anxious at times this year over rising food and fuel prices. Now another financial uncertainty had been thrown into the mix, and my mind was tired.

I teach part-time, freelance as a writer, work part-time in sales for a Catholic comic book company, and run The Simple Catholic. With ADHD, ideas also tend to arrive faster than I can organize them.

Sometimes it feels like I am juggling a dozen balls at once while someone keeps tossing more into the air. Creativity is a gift, but without prayer and proper rest, even gifts can become exhausting.

I knew I needed God, but I didn’t expect how persistently He would remind me of His presence throughout that Mass.

The First Consolation Came at the Door

When we finally entered the church, the greeters welcomed us, and one woman especially caught my attention.

She was in an electric wheelchair helping hand out missals. What struck me wasn’t her disability but her joy and the cheerfulness with which she welcomed us.

There I was walking into Mass physically capable of doing so many things, yet mentally carrying every problem I could fit onto my shoulders. And here was this woman greeting people with genuine joy.

Something about that encounter pierced through my anxiety. It was the first consolation God gave me that morning.

Then came the readings.

The responsorial Psalm repeated:

“Remember your mercies, O Lord.”

I needed that reminder. God wasn’t telling me, Matthew, figure everything out. Calculate every possible financial scenario. Make sure you have a perfect plan for the next six months.

Instead, the message was much simpler: remember His mercy.

Psalm 25 asks God to teach us His paths and guide us in truth. That’s difficult for someone like me because I like paths; I just prefer seeing the entire path before I start walking.

God usually doesn’t work that way. He gives enough light for the next step.

Then came the Gospel, and suddenly I saw myself in a vineyard.

I Am One of the Sons in the Vineyard

Jesus tells the story of a father who asks his two sons to work in his vineyard.

The first refuses but later changes his mind and goes. The second gives the correct answer, “Yes, sir,” but he doesn’t go.

Jesus asks which son actually did the father’s will, and the answer is obvious: the first.

What matters isn’t merely what we say to God in a single moment. Our lives are measured by our response to His grace over time.

Our priest preached about perseverance. My kids affectionately call him “Father Grandpa” because he looks like my dad, and I’ve always been struck by the sincerity of his faith and the fervor with which he celebrates Mass.

I’ve had the thought more than once: This priest is a living saint.

During his homily, Father spoke about asking the Holy Spirit for the gift of great perseverance until the end, and those words hit me.

God isn’t sitting in Heaven with a balance scale, weighing all the good things I did years ago against whether I am following Him today. Yesterday’s faithfulness doesn’t give me permission to stop following Christ today.

At the same time, yesterday’s failures don’t prevent me from turning toward Him today.

That’s the hope contained in the first son’s response. He said no, but then he went.

How many times have I done the same thing?

God Cares About How We Finish

There have been plenty of times when I haven’t trusted God immediately. I’ve worried, tried to control situations, and allowed anxiety to consume mental energy that could have been spent praying.

I’ve told God “yes” while my actions communicated something closer to, “Yes, Lord, but first let me make sure I have a backup plan in case You don’t come through.”

Yet the parable reminded me that the Christian life isn’t about having a flawless record. It’s about conversion again and again, and ultimately, it matters how we finish.

Saint Paul uses the imagery of running a race elsewhere in Scripture, and that image came to mind as I listened to Father’s words about perseverance.

The Christian life isn’t a sprint won by whoever starts with the most enthusiasm. We have to keep returning to Christ when we stumble, become distracted, grow tired, or wander from the path.

That realization brought me peace.

Then I saw the woman from the entrance again, but this time she was bringing the gifts forward during the Offertory.

The same person whose joy greeted me when I entered the church was now approaching the altar with the bread and wine that would soon become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

It was another small consolation, another way God kept placing reminders in front of me.

And then we entered the Eucharistic Prayer.

Jesus Was Right There in Front of Me

Sometimes familiarity can dull our sense of wonder.

I’ve attended Mass thousands of times. I know when to stand, when to kneel, and what responses to say, but every so often God breaks through that familiarity and reminds me what is actually happening.

This was one of those Sundays.

During the Eucharistic Prayer, I found myself contemplating the immensity of the gift before me: Jesus Christ was giving Himself to us again.

The same God I had spent the morning worrying wasn’t going to provide enough for my family was about to give me Himself.

Think about the absurdity of my anxiety in light of that truth. I was worried about what might happen months from now while kneeling before the God who holds eternity in His hands.

That doesn’t mean financial problems aren’t real, nor does it mean Christians should ignore bills, budgets, student loans, or rising grocery prices.

Trust isn’t pretending problems don’t exist; trust means remembering that our problems aren’t bigger than God.

And the Eucharist is the greatest possible reminder of that truth.

The God who created galaxies makes Himself small enough to be received under the appearance of bread. He gives Himself completely—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

And He asks me to trust Him with groceries?

God Knew Exactly What I Needed

By Communion, I was emotional. It had been a long time since I experienced a Mass this intensely.

Then came another consolation in the Communion hymn, and finally, the closing hymn was composed by Matt Maher.

That might seem like an insignificant detail, but it wasn’t to me.

Matt Maher’s music has accompanied me through some of the darkest periods of my life. I especially found consolation in his music during periods of deep depression in 2014 and 2017.

God knows our history. He knows which songs we’ve cried through, which Scripture passages have carried us, and the people whose kindness will reach us.

He knows the priests whose words we need to hear, and He knows when a cheerful woman handing out missals will remind an anxious man that joy is still possible.

None of these moments individually would appear extraordinary, but together, they overwhelmed me.

I entered Mass worried about money, exhausted by work, mentally scattered by too many projects, and aware that I hadn’t been as intentional about prayer as I needed to be.

I left reminded of something incredibly simple: God is faithful.

Ask for the Grace to Persevere

I still don’t know exactly how every financial situation will work itself out.

My workload didn’t disappear after Mass. I still have articles to write, students to teach, sales work to complete, bills to pay, and about 47 ideas bouncing around my ADHD brain at any given moment.

But perhaps I don’t need to know how everything ends. I need to know Who walks with me.

The first son in the vineyard didn’t begin well, but he changed his mind and went.

Maybe that’s one of the greatest consolations of the Christian life: we can return.

When prayer becomes inconsistent, return. When anxiety replaces trust, return. When we become distracted by work, return. When financial worries occupy our thoughts, return.

Even when we tell God “no,” whether through our words or our actions, we can still turn around and walk into the vineyard.

And when we become tired, we can ask the Holy Spirit for the grace our priest reminded us to seek: great perseverance until the end.

Sunday morning, I walked into Mass carrying worries about what might happen next. God didn’t give me a spreadsheet or explain how every problem would be solved.

Instead, He gave me a joyful woman in a wheelchair, His Word, a faithful priest, and music that had consoled me before.

And above all, He gave me Himself in the Eucharist.

That was more than enough.

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