He will lease his vineyard to other tenants

5 OCTOBER (Mt 21,33-43)

The life of every man is the vineyard that God entrusted us so that we produce for Him the fruits of righteousness and truth, love and great piety,mercy, compassion and true peace. God’s vineyard is also the Lord’s people, to whom God asks for the fruit of faithfulness to the covenantstipulated at Mount Sinai, after its liberation from slavery in Egypt. God sends his messengers, the prophets, to ask for the fruits due to Him by creation and covenant, but the people rebels and mishandles, or clubs, or despises, or kills the sent and messengers. It decided to give its Lordno fruit.

The Lord sends always and is always responded with a refusal. It is as if God had no right either on man or on his people. It is as if between us and God there were no relationship, no obligation and no duty. It is as if the man were self made. Without God and without Lord. God and Lord of himself. But God wants the fruit from the vine growers. The vineyard is his. It is his property. The fruits belong to him by right. In the end, hoping for a favorable result, he thinks to send his only son. But those peasants have a devilish and satanic thought. He is the only heir. Let us kill himand the vineyard will always be ours. They took him out of the vineyard and killed him.

This is the parable. In it, the whole history of salvation is told. God wants fruit and that is why he repeatedly sends prophets and messengers.There is no listening. The people is deaf, hard of hearing, uncircumcised at heart. It treats very bad the envoys of the Lord. The Lord intervenes inmany ways and different times to restore justice, but with poor results. Listening lasts a little. Obedience is for a few moments. Even Jesus mustcollide against this reality. He, the Only Son of the Father, is taken out of Jerusalem and crucified on Golgotha. The man wants to be the lord, the owner of his life. He wants no God above him. It loves false gods, because with them it is always its will that is accomplished, even though apparently it seems to be not his will.

“Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’  They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

Today, this parable is more relevant than ever. A religious atheism that scares and frightens reigns in our time. Even the religious man proclaimed himselfGod and the word of God. He removed all voice, meaning and truth even to the true Word of God, the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is as if he had “pasteurized” it; that is,  deprived it of every germ of eternal life. Even today there is no room for the true prophets, the true messengers. Even todaythey are banned with highly sophisticated methods, but no less effective than those of the past. The result is always the same: they must be banned. No space must be left so that they can speak and act. They must be deprived of any credibility. Even today the prophecy of Jesus Christ to his disciples is fulfilled: “The days will come when those who kill you will think of worshipping God.” In truth it is just like this. The true prophets are put to silence, in the name of the faith, the gospel, theology, religion, tradition and every other instrument.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints give strength and voice to true prophets.