An Instruction for the Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (25)

On this present Sunday, my beloved brothers, the Church appoints to be read from the Gospel the parable of a certain landowner, who planted a vineyard, and of the vinedressers to whom the landowner entrusted his vineyard. The vineyard was magnificently laid out, with every fixture, with a wine-press, on excellent ground, enclosed by a hedge; but the vinedressers proved extremely cunning and wicked, and not only failed to give the fruits to the owner in due season, but also beat the servants sent by the owner, or killed them outright and stoned them, and, at the last, killed even the owner’s only son. By the landowner is understood the Father; by the vineyard, the Jewish church; by the vinedressers, the high priests, priests, and rulers to whom the Jewish church was entrusted; by the servants are understood the prophets, whom God often sent to the Jewish people, and who were, for the most part, beaten by the Jews; by the landowner’s son is understood the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But this parable, brothers, does not concern the Jews alone—it concerns us too, it touches us. By the Lord’s vineyard may and must also be understood every Christian soul; by the hedge, the law of God, by which every soul is, or ought to be, fenced about from sins; the wine-press or trough in the vineyard is our own heart, or our own inmost being, by which we receive the most pure Blood of the Lamb of God, slain for us; by the tower or upper chamber is understood the Church of Christ, or the grace of the Holy Spirit acting within the Church, establishing our hearts in faith and love and good works, and raising us up from earth to heaven, as it is said: set your mind on the things above, and not on the things of the earth (Col 3:2).

So then, the vineyard of God is all of us, brothers. And a vineyard ought to bring forth abundant fruit: do we bring to the Lord, the supreme Vinedresser over us, the fruits of good works, the fruits of repentance, faith, love, humility, meekness, goodness, mercy, self-restraint, purity, patience, and long-suffering, and the other virtues? Very, very little, and sometimes not at all: instead we bring the fruit of a wild vine, the vine of Sodom and Gomorrah—that is, every kind of foul deed: pride, malice, envy, greed, fornication, adultery, drunkenness, unbelief, godlessness, murder, and suicide. The Lord waits from us for the fruits of repentance, amendment, and virtue—and often waits in vain: we remain the same sinners, the same barren, withered trees, that we always were. Many Christians do violence to their own conscience, this servant of God within our soul, and even kill it, and give themselves over to lawlessness without fear; many justify their sins, or excuse themselves by the weakness of nature or the needs of our sinful nature, not distinguishing their own whims or lusts from genuine needs. Many are not even ashamed to slander the Gospel, saying that it supposedly demands the impossible, and live in complete contradiction to it, and thus, like the Jewish high priests and scribes, crucify the Son of God within themselves a second time. But why speak vaguely—many crucify the Son of God? We, you and I, often crucify the Son of God within ourselves—by our little faith, our spite, our envy, our intemperance, our gluttony, our drunkenness, the impurity of our own heart, our negligence, our impenitence, our laziness, and our other vices. What, then, will the owner of our vineyard do, once it has fallen into ruin and grown wild through our own negligence, when He comes to demand an account from us of our deeds, of all our impurities and our spite? The answer to this is the same one the high priests and scribes pronounced upon themselves: he will destroy these wicked men miserably, and will give the vineyard to other vinedressers—that is, He will give the greatest gift of faith and grace to people who will render Him the fruits in their seasons, that is, who will, with the help of grace, continually make progress in every virtue, throughout the whole of their life.

So then, brothers, while the Lord still gives us time, while the soul is still in the body, and our vineyard has not yet been taken from us, let us watch over it diligently, cultivate it, water it with the rain of tears, cleanse it by repentance, that it may bring forth more fruit. Amen.