Cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?

3 MARCH (Lk 13,1-9)

If we put a little attention to history, we notice that certain thoughts are difficult to eradicate. It is as if they are invincible, immortal. One of these thoughts makes us believe that the evil that happens attests wickedness, evilness and the non conversion of the other. The physical evil is not always a product of a personal moral evil. Sometimes there is a great mystery in it, incomprehensible to the mind and heart. Job suffered because he was tried. His friends consider him a sinner and invite him to get converted.

Then spoke Eliphaz the Temanite, who said: If someone attempts a word with you, will you mind? For how can anyone refrain from speaking? Behold, you have instructed many, and have made firm their feeble hands. Your words have upheld the stumbler; you have strengthened his faltering knees. But now that it comes to you, you are impatient; when it touches yourself, you are dismayed. Is not your piety a source of confidence, and your integrity of life your hope? Reflect now, what innocent person perishes? Since when are the upright destroyed? As I see it, those who plow for mischief and sow trouble, reap the same. By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his wrath they are consumed. Though the lion roars, though the king of beasts cries out, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken; The old lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. For a word was stealthily brought to me, and my ear caught a whisper of it. In my thoughts during visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, Fear came upon me, and shuddering, that terrified me to the bones. Then a spirit passed before me, and the hair of my flesh stood up. It paused, but its likeness I could not discern; a figure was before my eyes, and I heard a still voice: “Can a man be righteous as against God? Can a mortal be blameless against his Maker? Lo, he puts no trust in his servants, and with his angels he can find fault. How much more with those that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed more easily than the moth! Morning or evening they may be shattered; with no heed paid to it, they perish forever. The pegs of their tent are plucked up; they die without knowing wisdom.” (Job 4,1-21).

Some men are killed by Pilate. The tower of Siloam collapses and kills some others. What is the immoral thinking of the people? Those men are guilty. We are fair, honest, good, holy. Jesus corrects this thought today. We are not righteous because Pilate did not kill us and not even because the Siloam tower did not collapse on us. We are righteous because we keep the whole law of the Lord and unjust because we transgress his Commandments. Since no one knows the heart of the brothers, is mandatory for all to refrain from any judgment and condemnation. Judge is the Lord alone.

Jesus tells us today that we are all sinners and we all need conversion. We are all guilty before God. We transgress his Commandments, we do not keep his Law. We are invited to conversion, to true repentance, to return to our Father who is waiting to use us mercy. We must live in the Law.

At that time some people who were present there told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. (So) cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.'”

The Lord wishes he could uproot us from the earth because we are unproductive. Jesus continually intercedes for us, sending on us all the graces of salvation, so that we can really get converted. What Jesus does, we must do it for each other. Everyone is called to be a true instrument of conversion to his brothers. The salvation of others is placed by God in our hands, in our mission of grace and truth.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us instruments of salvation.