Since beginning my Catholic education that led to my recent baptism this past Easter, I have continually been astonished at how much I’ve learned that I already believed. I’ve never had any formal teaching in any Christian religion. I had attended a handful of Masses with friends or for their weddings, a christening or three, and I’ve had one or two who believed in evangelizing and brought me pamphlets and materials to read and consider.

One of the things I always had a problem with was Judgment Day and whether or not and who would make it into Heaven. My belief had been, and I apologize for the flippancy in which it sounds, but my belief was always that even if I didn’t believe, if Jesus was real, He would forgive my ignorance. He would take me into his flock because that’s what he does. It’s His thing.

Honestly, I tried to avoid this conversation because it does sound disrespectful and I’d never meant it in a tongue-sticking-out way, but in my head, it was just a logical assumption.

Over the course of the last year (it is almost exactly a year since I began in the program), I have had the privilege of taking several classes and workshops. I also ask a lot of questions, and I am so happy to say that they are always answered. My questioning is welcome and I find that when I can ask anything, it is easier to allow myself to think and decide what it is that I believe within the religious framework that I’ve been seeking.

In addition to daily Mass for the past two years, I’ve gone to lectures on Matthew’s Gospel by a local priest, and one of the things he expressed was this feeling, this statement that whenever you come to Christ, you are accepted. You can be the last one in the door, and still you are welcome. (He also had a few things to say about Judgment Day which I also believed in my heart since forever, but that is another essay.)

In hearing Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 20: 1-16), it reaffirmed that and what I’d always thought.

If I have made a conscientious choice with no malice, and I was mistaken, not through hubris, but through faith and reasoning, I would not be punished for my opinion. Jesus wasn’t that kind of a person. (Again, in my Jewish faith, I thought of Jesus as a person, not divine; this has changed in the last two years.)

He would not turn me away.

I’m not the last one in the door, but I have still found this to be true. I have been welcomed; not only by Jesus and His example, but by his representatives in the church and parish community.

Here is an excerpt from the New American Bible of Matthew 20: 1-16 that made me smile on Sunday:

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like ^[a]a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² When he had agreed with the laborers for a^[b]denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ And he went out about the ^[c]third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; ⁴ and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. ⁵ Again he went out about the ^[d]sixth and the ninth hour, and did ^[e]the same thing. ⁶ And about the^[f]eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ ⁷ They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

⁸ “When evening came, the ^[g]owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ ⁹ When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a^[h]denarius. ¹⁰ When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; ^[i]but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, ¹² saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ ¹³ But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ¹⁵ Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye ^[j]envious because I am^[k]generous?’ ¹⁶ So the last shall be first, and the first last.”