Contemplating today's Gospel: 200 priests comment on daily Gospel each day
Today's GospelListen to audio
Liturgic day: Sunday 3rd (C) of Lent
Gospel text (Lk 13:1-9): One day some persons told Jesus what
had occurred in the Temple: Pilate had Galileans killed and their
blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus replied, «Do
you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other
Galileans because they suffered this? I tell you: no. But unless you
change your ways, you will all perish as they did. And those eighteen
persons in Siloah who were crushed when the tower fell, do you think
they were more guilty than all the others in Jerusalem? I tell
you: no. But unless you change your ways, you will all perish as they
did».
And
Jesus continued with this story, «A man had a fig tree growing
in his vineyard and he came looking for fruit on it, but found
none. Then he said to the gardener: ‘Look here,
for three years now I have been looking for figs on this tree and I
have found none. Cut it down, why should it use up the ground?’.
The gardener replied: ‘Leave it one more year, so that I may
dig around it and add some fertilizer; and perhaps it will bear
fruit from now on. But if it doesn't, you can cut it down’».
Comment: Cardinal Jorge MEJÍA Archivist and Librarian of Holy Roman Church (, )
Unless you change your ways, you will all perish as they did
Today,
third Sunday of Lent, the evangelical reading contains Jesus' call to
penance and conversion. Or, rather, a demand for a change in our
lives.
In
Evangelical language “To convert to” means to change not
only our innermost attitude but our exterior style, too. It is one of
the mostly employed parables in the Gospel. Remember that, before the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, saint John the Baptist summarized
his advocation with the same saying: «Preaching a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins» (Mk 1:4).
And, immediately after, Jesus preaching can be summarized with these
words: «Repent and believe the good news!» (Mk
1:15).
Yet,
today's reading has some characteristics of its own that request
faithful attention and an adequate answer. It can be said that the
first part, with the two historic references (the Galileans' blood
shed by Pilate and the crumbling of the Siloh tower), contains a
threat. It is impossible to call it any other way!: we deplore the
two misfortunes —regretted and moaned at the time— but
Jesus Christ, most seriously, says to all of us: —«Unless
you change your ways, you will all perish as they did» (Lk
13:5).
This
shows us two basic things. In the first place, the total
seriousness of the Christian commitment. And, secondly, if we do
not respect it, as God commands, the possibility of our death, not in
this world but, much worse, in the other one: the eternal doom.
These two deaths in our text are nothing but examples of another
death, that cannot be compared to the first one.
Each one of us will
eventually find out how to face this demand of personal change.
Nobody is excluded. But if this may worry us, the second part should
confort us, instead. The “gardener”, who is Jesus, begs
the owner of the vineyard, his Father, to wait another year. And, in
the meanwhile, He will do whatever possible (and the impossible, by
dying for us) so that the vineyard may bear fruit. That is, we change
our ways! This is the message of Lent. Let us, therefore, take it
seriously. The saints —though late in his life saint Ignatious
of Loyola is one instance— do change by God's grace while
inciting us to change too.