Fr Marco Lazzaron
y friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug the soil, cleared it of stones
and planted choice vines in it. In the middle he built a tower, he dug a press there too.
He expected it to yield grapes, but sour grapes were all that it gave (Is 5:1-2).
In the Gospels of these past few weeks, we hear a lot about people who are asked to work in the vineyard of the Lord. Today, we focus on the vineyard itself. In today’s readings, we are told that we are that vineyard (“The vineyard of the Lord is the House of Israel”, Ps 80). God, as a good landowner, takes care of his vineyard, dug the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted a selected vine in it.
As part of this vine, we are asked to bear fruit that will last. Jesus says: ‘I am the vine, and you are the branches’ and ‘Cut off from me you can do nothing’. The vine that the first reading speaks about was supposed to produce sweet and nice wine and instead produced sour grapes. Surely, for someone who worked so much for that vineyard, it must have been a great distress when he saw that it was only making sour grapes instead of producing good wine. And we understand that now, out of anger, he wants to destroy everything. Instead, the Lord, even when we fail, comes to our help, and gives us more time so that we can bear a very tasty wine.
We are called to bear fruit for the Lord, which is true happiness, in particular when we are in communion with the Lord. It is true, though, that if we do not bear fruit for the Lord, then we are bearing fruit for the evil one. For this reason, we ourselves, are supposed to take care of ourselves: dug the soil is to know deeply ourselves and our weaknesses, to clear it of stones is to return to the Lord, to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation and remove the stones which are our sins, to build a tower is to fill our souls with the graces of the Holy Spirit that the Lord wants to give us, to protect it with a hedge is to protect our souls from the attacks of evil thoughts.
It is beautiful to see that in the Gospel of today, the worse is the violence of the tenants, the greater is the mercy that the landowner shows to them: to confirm what St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans: “However much sin increased, grace was always greater” (Rm 5:21).