by Fr. Tommy Lane
I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do
before the clock strikes midnight.
I have responsibilities to fulfill today.
I am important. My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.
Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or I can be thankful that the
grass is getting watered free of charge.
Today I can feel sad that I don’t have more money or I can be glad that my
finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.
Today I can grumble about my health or I can rejoice that I am alive.
Today I can lament over all that my parents didn’t give me when I was growing
up or I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born.
Today I can cry because roses have thorns or I can celebrate that thorns have
roses.
Today I can mourn my lack of friends or I can excitedly embark upon a quest to
discover new relationships.
Today I can whine because I have to go to work or I can shout for joy because I
have a job to do. I can complain because I have to go to school or eagerly open
my mind and fill it with rich new tidbits of knowledge.
Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or I can feel
honored because the Lord has provided shelter for my mind, body and soul.
Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped. And here I am, the sculptor
who gets to do the shaping. What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose
what kind of day I will have!
What a difference the correct attitude to life makes. What a mess we can get into if we have the wrong attitude to life. What a mess the vineyard tenants in our Gospel parable today got into because they had the wrong attitude. They were tenants. The vineyard owner was probably one of the wealthy Romans who had vineyards in Israel at the time of Jesus. Since the vineyard owner may have been living in Italy, native Palestinians had to look after the vineyard. Unfortunately the tenants had the wrong attitude. When the owner sent servants to collect the produce of the vineyard, the tenants thrashed one, killed one and stoned the third. They did the same with the next group of servants and also killed the owner’s son. The tenants’ problem was that they thought they owned the place, they were acting as if they could get the produce from the vineyard and forgot that they were working for the absentee owner living abroad and that the produce was his. Because of the mess their wrong attitude got them into, committing murder, the absentee owner would take the vineyard from their care and give it to others who would give him the produce.
So what has that got to do with us? What is the vineyard now? The vineyard for us is everything God has given to us. The absentee vineyard owner is God our Father in heaven. We are the tenants looking after the vineyard that God has given to us. What is our attitude to the vineyard? Remember what I said at the beginning about our attitude? What is our attitude to everything God has given to us? Are we caring for everything God has given to us? Are we grateful for everything God has given to us? Are we like the tenants acing as if we own everything God has given to us and forgetting that we are to produce fruit for God? Are we forgetting about the Giver who has given us all these beautiful gifts?
I will conclude with a Lectio Divina meditation on today’s Gospel written by Fr Michel de Verteuil (Trinidad).
Lord, we praise and we bless you for your gifts to us:
our country with its mountains and valleys, its rivers and beaches, its trees
and animals;
our homes and all our possessions;
our families, our children, our spouses and our parents;
our friends and spiritual guides;
the communities in which we work and pray;
our talents and the education which we have received.
Truly you have planted a beautiful vineyard, fenced it round,
dug a winepress in it and built a tower,
and then you leased it to us.
We thank you for the privilege of being tenants of your vineyard.
Forgive us, Lord, if we are resentful or angry when
we experience our frailty:
ill health or the signs of old age;
failure or ingratitude;
criticism, especially when it is undeserved.
Yet these very things are your servants that you send to remind us
that we are only your tenants in this world,
and the season will soon arrive when we will have to hand over the produce to
you.
Lord, we thank you for those who have loved us
without being possessive -
parents, teachers, and others.
When the time came they were able to let go,
as calmly as any tenant-farmer delivering his produce when the season arrives.
Lord, we thank you for the great prophets of our
time:
Church leaders like Archbishop Romero and Dom Helder Câmara;
national leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King;
and many others.
You sent them as your servants to the big people of the world,
calling them to account for their tenancy.
They were seized and thrashed,
some were thrown out of the vineyard and killed.
But you have made them the key-stones of a new age,
truly a wonderful thing to see.
Lord, you have called us to be members of your
Church;
forgive us that we so easily become arrogant,
as if we have earned the right to be there by our own efforts.
Forgive us that we look on our wealth or the wealth
of our country
as our own - to do with what we like.
Help us to be humble about our spiritual as well as temporal gifts,
to be like people to whom land has been leased only because others proved
unfaithful,
and who know that at any moment it can be taken from them just as easily,
to be given to others who will produce better fruit.
This homily was delivered when I was engaged in parish ministry in Ireland before joining the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland.
More homilies for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday Year A
God Continues to Call us to Bear Fruit
Producing Fruit for the Kingdom
Related Homilies: Bearing Fruit - Our love is not to be just words or mere talk