Sir, leave it for this year also

Ex 3,1-8a.13-15; Ps 102; 1 Cor 10,1-6.10-12; Lk 13,1-9
24 MARCH

Jesus does not want his disciples to live in false faith, false thoughts, false discernments and false evaluations of history. He wants the facts to be separated from the truth of the facts. These are never indicative of innocence or guilt. If a tower falls, not necessarily the one who dies is a sinner and is struck by the judgment of God. While he who does not die is declared righteous because he is not dead. Guilt or innocence is given by the conscience that is examined before the Law of the Lord. Whoever transgresses the Law is guilty. The one who observes it is innocent. He is true according to God who dwells in the Law. He is not true according to God who places himself outside the law. Jesus wants everyone to verify his spiritual state and get converted, otherwise with physical death eternal death will always be achieved. No one must think that whoever dies in his bed is saved, while who dies of an accident is damned. One who is found in the Word of the Lord is saved for eternity. He is damned who at the moment of death is not found in his Law, in his Statutes and in his Commandments by God.

A master plants a fig tree in his vineyard. He comes to look for the fruits, but he does not find them. He gives order to the farmer to cut that plant. He has been looking for fruit on it for three years, but he does not find any. What is the use of leaving a tree alive if it does not give any fruit? You cut, you leave the land free, you plant another one that will bear fruit at the right time. Now the peasant’s mercy intervenes. This asks the owner to leave it for one more year. He will undertake to treat it with every care. He will do all that is possible so that the fig tree produces. If after, despite all the care, it will still remain sterile and unfruitful, then he might cut it. This is not an unfruitful, ineffective mercy that leaves the tree abandoned to itself. We are faced with a mercy that puts every effort to help the tree to produce. This effective mercy is always asked of us. When can we say that our mercy is effective? When everything that depends on us has been done. Only then we will be without any fault before God. Instead, if we have done nothing, or have done it wrong, then we are guilty before God for our omission.

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.'”

Every disciple of Jesus is obliged to live with efficacious mercy in relation to the sacrament received from him, to the gifts of the Holy Spirit with which he has been enriched and to the particular mission that has been placed on his shoulders. There is no universal mercy, equal for everyone. Mercy is specific, personal, ordered and particular. If the order established by God, which is before any other thing a sacramental and pneumatological and charismatic order, is lost, if confusion arises in this order because there is an exchange of roles and tasks, mercy will always be ineffective. A farmer and a carpenter both treat wood. The farmer treats it to make it live and give fruit. The carpenter treats it to transform it into a piece of furniture or something else. The peasant uses effective mercy to make him live. The carpenter to turn it into useful things for the home. There is a difference between a science for a living wood and a science for a dead wood. Thus there is a difference between the effective mercy of a bishop who must give truth and the Holy Spirit and that of a confirmed person who is a witness.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure the Christian never creates confusion in mercy.