On this Saturday of the twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time, the Church remembers Saint Anthony Mary Claret, a Catalan bishop and the founder of a missionary family. Our difficulty is the habit of reading the misfortunes of others as verdicts and our own comfort as proof of innocence. Today the readings overturn that habit in three steps: a call to grow in Christ, a warning about repentance and a fig tree given one more year.
And there were present, at that very time, some who were reporting about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices. And responding, he said to them: "Do you think that these Galileans must have sinned more than all other Galileans, because they suffered so much? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you will all perish similarly. And those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they also were greater transgressors than all the men living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you. But if you do not repent, you will all perish similarly." And he also told this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree, which was planted in his vineyard. And he came seeking fruit on it, but found none. Then he said to the cultivator of the vineyard: 'Behold, for these three years I came seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Therefore, cut it down. For why should it even occupy the land?' But in response, he said to him: 'Lord, let it be for this year also, during which time I will dig around it and add fertilizer. And, indeed, it should bear fruit. But if not, in the future, you shall cut it down.' " (Lk 13:1-9)
The first reading, from the letter to the Ephesians, begins with a gift before any demand. Paul, the apostle of the nations, writes that grace has been given to each one of us according to the measure that Christ allots. The same Christ then gives apostles, prophets and evangelists, so that the body of believers may be built up. The call to turn back to God has always travelled through such messengers, and it reaches us through them today.
But a gift is given to be used, and Paul says where it leads. It leads toward a maturity in which we may "no longer be little children, disturbed and carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4:14). The remedy is a direction to take: "acting according to truth in charity, we should increase in everything" (Eph 4:15), until we reach Christ, the head of the body. The psalm says it in the plural, "We shall go into the house of the Lord" (Ps 121:1), and the body that grows toward Christ is also the company that goes into his house.
In the Gospel, Luke, the evangelist, opens with a piece of news: some people report that Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, mixed the blood of certain Galileans with their sacrifices. The listeners expect Jesus to share a common prejudice, which holds that a violent death is the penalty for a grave fault. But Jesus asks, "Do you think that these Galileans must have sinned more than all other Galileans" (Lk 13:2). He adds the eighteen who died when the tower of Siloam fell. He does not explain the suffering; he turns the question toward those who ask it.
That is why his answer is the same for both disasters: "unless you repent, you will all perish similarly" (Lk 13:3). The sentence leaves no one outside, the righteous and the saints included, since every disciple has still to turn toward God. Repentance begins with a humble look at our limits. It is a double movement: we recognize what we are, and we turn to God to be raised up. Christ accomplishes that change in us through his Spirit, who lets us do the will of the Father and enter the life of God here and now. And the work is renewed each day, modestly and patiently.
Then comes the parable of a man whose fig tree has given no fruit in three years and who wants it cut down. But the vinedresser, who stands for Christ, pleads for it: "Lord, let it be for this year also, during which time I will dig around it and add fertilizer" (Lk 13:8). He grants that the years were barren, then adds a year and puts his hands into the soil, digging, feeding and hoping. In gentleness, God believes in the tree more than the tree believes in itself. And yet the year is a time of mercy, not to be spent carelessly, for the verdict is postponed rather than withdrawn.
In the spirituality of Bethlehem, roots are the part of a life nobody photographs, and the Child laid in the manger shows where God begins: small, dependent and hidden, with the fruit left to a later hour. Such childhood is the trust from which growth becomes possible, for a child receives what he becomes from the hands of his Father. Bethlehem therefore reads the vinedresser's extra year as time given to roots, a year in which a life sinks deeper into the Father's care before it shows anything at all.
This is why the Lord invites us to look first at the ground of our own lives, in our homes, our work and our prayer, before we pass judgment on the misfortunes of others. He asks us to repent as a body that grows toward Christ, with the humility of those who know their limits and the trust of those whom the vinedresser tends.
So let us accept the extra year as a time of mercy and of roots. The fig tree stands in the same ground as before, and yet the hands of the vinedresser are already in the soil, and what looks like waiting is the work of God. Let us grow in truth and charity, and let us bear fruit in its season. One more year is already a gift.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, Child of Bethlehem, you are the vinedresser who pleads for the barren tree and digs around it with patient hands. Give us the humility to turn back to the Father before we judge anyone else, and the truth spoken in charity by which your body grows. Let this year of mercy sink our roots deep into your care, and bring from us fruit that lasts. Amen.
For Meditation
- When we hear of the misfortune of another, do we ask what it says about that person, or what it asks of us?
- What in our own lives has gone three years without fruit, and what would it mean to let the vinedresser dig around it?
- Where do we still need to grow up in truth and charity, so that we are no longer carried about by every passing opinion?
