Blessed are the Unfortunate

Solemnity of All Saints

The gospel which is read every year on the occasion of this feast seeks to underline the paradox of being a saint. One could paraphrase the Beatitudes in this way, “Blessed or Happy are those who are unfortunate.” One who mourns, for example, would never imagine himself as being happy. But our Lord declares this to him, “Happy are those who are not happy.”

But what strange kind of good fortune is it that is suggested by the words “blessed” or “happy”? The word has two temporal dimensions: it embraces both the present and the future, and each in a different way. The present aspect consists of the fact that those who seem to be in an unfortunate situation are told that they enjoy a special closeness to God and His Kingdom. God has favourites. He favours those mentioned in the Beatitudes. It is precisely in the sphere of suffering that God with His Kingdom is particularly present to them. When someone suffers and complains, God’s heart is moved to act and draws near to the person to offer deliverance.

But the present dimension of each of the Beatitudes also includes a future: God’s ultimate victory that is still hidden will one day manifest. Hence what each beatitude is saying is this: “Do not be afraid in your distress; God is close to you here and now, and He will be your great comfort and consolation in the time to come.” Because of this future dimension, the Beatitudes provide us with the core of Christian hope. The paradox of the Beatitudes are captured so beautifully and succinctly in the words of St Paul, “We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor 6:8-10). This paradox has now become the model of Christian life and existence, the roadmap to sainthood.

Pope Francis reminds us, “The Beatitudes are like a Christian’s identity card. So, if anyone asks: “What must one do to be a good Christian?”, the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily lives”

In order to grasp the true profundity of the Beatitudes, and thereby the core of Christian hope, it is important to remember that they are essentially Christological. The real subject, of the beatitudes and in fact the entire Sermon on the Mount, is Jesus. It is only on this basis that we can discover the entire meaning of Christian faith life. Pope Benedict puts it this way, “The Beatitudes are the transposition of the Cross and Resurrection into discipleship". But they apply to the disciple because they were first paradigmatically lived by Christ himself … (they) present a “sort of veiled interior biography of Jesus.”

One needs to remember that in order to study the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, it is not enough that we study the text of the gospel. The Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be some exaggerated, abstract and unreal moral lecture that has no correlation to daily life. The best commentary of the sermon and the beatitudes is the life of Christ, and by extension the lives of the Saints. Christ stands in the middle of the text and unites it with the lives of the saints who sought to imitate Him, in life and in death. The saints saw themselves in the text of the Beatitudes because they saw Christ in the middle of it. Christ is the one who is poor in spirit. He is the one who mourns, who is meek, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, who is merciful, who is pure in heart, who is a peacemaker and who is persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Each of the Beatitudes is flesh and blood in Him. Can there ever be a better example?

For us too, the Beatitudes are a summon to follow Jesus Christ in discipleship. He alone is “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.” On our own, we can never hope to be “perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.” The saints understood this truth. They recognised the path to sainthood is simply this – to die to oneself so that more of Christ would come alive in them. The saints provide us with a kaleidoscope to view Christ. That is why when the saints are honoured, it is Christ who is honoured above all. In loving the saints, Christ is not loved any less. On the contrary, Christ is rightly loved and glorified and His commandments are observed in the veneration of the saints.

The journey from this life to the next can be long, with many twists and turns, ups and downs, and it is imperative to stay on the right road. Don’t despair when life throws you lemons, just make lemonade! How can we be certain that we will not get lost on the way? Our Lord provides us with the Beatitudes as a roadmap and the Church provides us with the saints as guides. Happy are you because you have Christ and the saints as models of how to make it on this Way! What more can we ask for?

Love and do what you will

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The slogan, “Love and do what you will” seems more suited on the lips of a libertine than on a saint. We can understand why a libertine would promote this since he is devoid of moral principles except perhaps the most basic moral principle of not doing harm to anyone. In fact, Nike could have even reframed and rebranded the slogan in the form of its famous tagline: “Just Do It.”

Most of you may be surprised and shocked to know that these words were indeed spoken by a saint, and not just any ordinary saint. It is none other than the great Doctor of the West, St Augustine, who wrote extensively on original sin and the necessity of grace for one’s justification. Why would such a great theologian, regarded as only second to St Paul, make such an irresponsible statement that could serve as a license for future generations to “just do it”, seemingly regardless of moral bearings and eternal consequences?

Well, these words would have been irresponsible if St Augustine is saying that as long as you love God, you can go ahead and do pretty much anything you want to, even something sinful, and it’s perfectly okay. Sounds very much like the tagline for advocates of same-sex marriage and other sexual aberrations – “love is love.” But thank God, this is not what Augustine meant. Because of our sinful and fallen nature and without the aid of grace, we can’t “just do it.” That is why the Incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus are essential, if anyone is to have eternal life. Only if we love completely as our Lord has commanded us to do in today’s gospel, then whatever it pleases you to do will be the correct thing to do.

In explaining his point, St Augustine gives several illustrations to highlight two issues which may lead many to confuse genuine love with a self-serving attitude. Firstly, people tend to be easily misled by appearances. Coddling a child may give the impression that you are loving but it could just be a selfish way of winning the child’s confidence and approval. On the other hand, punishing or admonishing a child may seem harsh and unloving but this could actually be an act of loving discipline, hoping that the child will amend his ways. How would we know which is which? St Augustine tells us to look at the motivation. Our actions need to be motivated by love. St Augustine tells us that we can love and do what we will because true love desires only the good of the beloved. Love goes so much farther than simply not hurting anyone. This is often the excuse used to justify sexual sins. “What’s wrong with masturbation or pornography? I’m not hurting anyone?” No, love seeks good. The good of the other and our good too. And all sin continue to hurt God and ourselves, if not others.

St Augustine’s maxim helps us to see how the two parts of the Great Commandment of Love are inseparable. The moment we attempt to separate them and to favour one over the other, the whole thing falls apart.

Loving God is the foundation of the very possibility of loving anyone else for the simple reason that, only in the relationship with God can we feel fundamentally loved. Only in the relationship with God can we feel truly forgiven despite our fragility and offer forgiveness to others. We can only generate love if we feel truly acknowledged in this relationship that is rooted in the deepest depths of our hearts. Many people are unable to love because they are not willing to undergo the deep experience of recognising that they are sinners and yet loved undeservedly. If someone feels unloved because he feels that he is undeserving of love, he will likewise be unable to love others whom he thinks is undeserving of his love.

If you love God first and love Him truly and completely, then you will only desire that which is pleasing to Him, you will desire to follow His commandments. To profess that you love God while going against His Will and His Laws will immediately expose you as a liar and a hypocrite. One can never claim to love God while one persists in sinning. St Augustine doesn’t give us a license to do as we want, but a reason to do what God wants - that reason is love.

Our Lord has freed us from the bonds of sin and death. But that freedom is not a license to do as we please. Being free to choose sin is not true freedom. In fact, we can freely choose to enslave ourselves once more to sin. St Paul therefore warns us, “Do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, serve one another through love” (Gal 5:13).

It follows that the commandment to love our neighbour must first recognise that human life will not work out if God is left out: its aspirations are nothing but contradiction. Nothing can be considered good if there is no ultimate basis for all good. Nothing can be considered true if there is no Absolute Truth which is ageless and always true, and not just true for a certain time and for a certain people. How could we possibly grow in love if there is no ultimate benchmark for love?

Loving our neighbour, especially the poor, the weak, and the marginalised can never just be a dictate of justice. Loving others without rooting it in the love of God eventually ends in a pale surrogate of love, a distortion of true love. This is why the love that our Lord speaks of is not a mere human love. Only if we are anchored in the primary relationship with God can we begin to love others in a wholesome and unselfish way. Without such connexion, our weak attempts at loving end up following the idols of egoism, of power, of dominion, polluting our relations with others, and following paths not of life, but of death.

If we lose sight of God, then all that remains as a guiding thread is nothing but our ego. We will try to grab as much as possible out of this life for ourselves. We will say that we are motivated by altruistic values or even love, but the truth is that we are in it for ourselves. We will see all the others as enemies of our happiness who threaten to take something away from us. Envy and greed will take over our lives and poison our world.

For this reason, it is critically important to remember that only if this fundamental relationship with God is right, then can all other relationships be right. Our whole lives should be driven by this motivation to practice thinking with God, feeling with God, willing with God, so that love may grow and become the keynote of our life. Only then can love of neighbour be self-evident. Only if we love as how God loves, can we “do what you will!”

Give to God what belongs to God

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

When you are a Catholic priest, most people often think that you are a walking encyclopaedia, which is a myth. It is just that we have learnt how to “wing it.” Once in a while, I’m presented with a gotcha question, a sort of Catch 22 situation, that is intended to be a trap. The price of pretending to be Mr Know-It-All. Here’s the dilemma - you will get into trouble if you give the right but unpopular answer, but you would also most likely be caught for being insincere if you give the polite answer, albeit the wrong one. It always seems to be an arbitrary choice between speaking the truth and lose friends or tell a lie, to escape trouble, although you may risk being found out eventually.

In today’s gospel, an alliance of Pharisees and Herodians, who were traditional enemies, ganged up to set a trap for the Lord. Notice how they attempt to butter up the Lord with flattery and insincere praise before springing the trap: “Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way, and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you. Tell us your opinion, then.” Despite their insincerity, their description of the Lord is accurate and valid. Our Lord Jesus is not only “an honest man” or a teacher who teaches “the way of God in an honest way,” He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For us mortals, honesty is a virtue. For Christ, Truth is His very nature.

After stating that our Lord is an honest man of God who does not pander to the crowds, they introduce their Catch 22 scenario, “Master … Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” What is this tax due to Caesar? To a 21st century reader who often complains about being subjected to a myriad of taxes, from income tax to service taxes, the people who lived during our Lord’s time would have also laboured under various taxes. There was the temple tax which amounted to half a shekel levied upon every Jew, 20 years and above. There was the income tax: one percent of one’s income was to be given to Rome, and then, the ground tax or property tax: one tenth of all grain and one fifth of all oil and wine were to be paid in kind or in coinage to Rome. Finally, to further humiliate the colonised, there was the poll tax: a denarius or a day’s wage was to be paid to Rome by all men ages 14-65 and all women ages 12-65, to remind them of their subjugated status. The tax referred here as being due to Caesar would most likely belong to the last category of taxes - the poll tax.

A rejection by Jesus of the poll tax would have been reported as treason to Rome. On the other hand, if Jesus had agreed to pay it, the Pharisees would have accused Him of betraying His own people, since it would be acquiescing their continued subjugation under Roman rule. Furthermore, anyone dealing with the coin could also be accused of blasphemy and idolatry because the coin displayed an image of Caesar who is a self-proclaimed god. Discerning a plot of entrapment, our Lord cuts through the hypocrisy and political differences to the very heart of the matter, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

This saying does three crucial things. First, it acknowledges that Caesar, denoting any public authority, does have rights; that a difference does exist between the concerns of God and the concerns of Caesar. But second, our Lord desacralises – in effect, He demotes – Caesar by suggesting that Caesar has no rights over those things that belong to God. Caesar is not god. Our politicians and government are not gods. Only God is God. And thirdly, the Lord remains silent about what exactly belongs to either God or Caesar. Figuring all that out belongs to us. Now, this can be hard work because no detailed map exists because while human nature doesn’t change, human circumstances change all the time.

This saying provides us with a framework for how we should think about religion and the state even today. The Lord reminds us that Caesar does have rights. Scripture tells us that we owe secular leaders our respect and prayers; respect for the law; obedience to proper authority; and service to the common good. But it’s a rather modest list of duties. And we need to remember that “respect” for Caesar does not mean subservience, or silence, or inaction, or excuse-making or acquiescence to grave evil. Sometimes, Christians suffer from a phony unwillingness to offend civil authority that poses as prudence and good manners, but in truth, this is only a guise for cowardice. It is true that human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy, but we also owe each other the truth!

In fact, the more we reflect on today’s passage, the more we realise that everything important about human life belongs not to Caesar but to God: our intellect, our talents, our free will, the people we love, Truth, the beauty and goodness in the world, our soul, our moral integrity and of course, our hope for Eternal Life. These are the things worth struggling to ennoble and defend, and none of them came from Caesar or anyone or any government who succeeded him. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience. However, that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. In reality, all belongs to God and nothing — at least nothing permanent and important — belongs to Caesar. Why? Because just as the coin bears the stamp of Caesar’s image, we bear the stamp of God’s image in baptism. We belong to God, and only to God.

All of us, Christians and non-Christians are called to be honest and persons of integrity, to speak truth even to those in power. But more than anything else, we Christians must proclaim the truth about Christ. Pope Benedict once gave this powerful exhortation to a group of pilgrims to Rome: "We cannot stoop to compromises with the love of Christ, his Word, the Truth. The Truth is the Truth and there is no compromise. Christian life requires, so to speak, the daily "martyrdom" of fidelity to the Gospel - that is the courage to let Christ grow in us and direct our thinking and our actions.” So, give to God what belongs to God … which is everything.

A Banquet for all peoples

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The significance of a meal can never be overstated. It is clear that food is more than just essential for our species’ survival. For survival needs, people everywhere could eat the same food, to be measured only in calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. But a meal is also an important social event. We celebrate weddings, anniversaries and birthdays with a meal. We honour and remember our dead at wakes and funerals with a meal. We conclude business discussions and seal contracts over a meal. We deepen bonds of friendship over a meal. There is something magical, even mystical about meals. It is no wonder that a priest who was an avid promoter of basic ecclesial communities (BEC) often joked that the acronym BEC should stand for Best Eating Club, alluding to the food potlucks being the most popular reason why Catholics decide to gather in small groups, if for no other reason.

The first reading provides us with a description of a sumptuous feast of “rich food” on an unnamed mountain which marks the end of a period of mourning. Most scholars agree that the prophet Isaiah was painting a picture of restoration for those of the House of Judah who had been taken into exile after the fall of Jerusalem to the invading Babylonians. The exiles were returning home and God was going to enter into a new relationship with them. The scene recalls another banquet that took place on another mountain. In Exodus (24:1-11), Moses and the seventy elders whom he has chosen, go up to Sinai, the mountain of the Lord, where they feasted. It was not just a social celebration but a covenant meal, sealing their relationship with God who had brought them out of Egypt and had blessed them with the Law, food and water.

But the time of the restoration of Israel in Isaiah’s prophetic vision would not only be a time of a New Exodus but also a time of Conquest. The banquet celebrates God’s ultimate victory over suffering and death, where He “will destroy Death for ever” and “wipe away the tears from every cheek” and “take away His people’s shame everywhere on earth.” It will be a banquet which is not only confined to the leaders of Israel as during the Exodus, nor even confined to the Jews. It would be a banquet which the Lord prepares “for all peoples.” And this meal would be held in plain sight and not hidden behind the walls of the Temple where the Jewish performed their rites in secrecy, nor behind the veil which concealed the Holy of Holies.

What the Old Testament promises, the gospel fulfils and we see this in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus often finds Himself in the middle of a feast. He also seemed to enjoy a hearty meal and did not refuse any opportunity to dine with His hosts and guests. Table fellowship among the Jews was a big deal. Pharisees did not dine with people whom they regarded were below their stature because they saw each meal as “eating with God.” This is where our Lord was subject to their ire because He frequently feasted with disreputable folks like tax collectors and sinners. He concluded His public ministry and inaugurated His passion with a meal. The communal meal did not only provide our Lord with an opportunity to provide teaching to those who were in attendance but was also the subject of His teaching parables. Today’s parable of the wedding feast is one such example.

Notice that Isaiah’s covenant meal has now morphed into a wedding banquet in our Lord’s parable. We already see the typology of a wedding and marriage in the Old Testament writing of Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the Psalms. The covenant between God and Israel is often described as a marriage and Israel’s apostasy is seen as infidelity of the bride towards her spouse. Our Lord now strings together these related themes of an eschatological or end times banquet, a covenant meal and a wedding feast in this compelling parable of judgment.

Our Lord describes the Kingdom of Heaven as a wedding banquet thrown by the king for his son to which the king’s subjects are invited. Two groups emerge - those who actually attend the feast and those who do not. Perhaps the most important feature of this parable is the invitation. Though this is a wedding banquet, the bride is significantly missing from the narrative and the bridegroom, the son of the king, is not an important character in the storyline even though the banquet is held in his honour. This would suggest that the focus is not on the wedding between the bride and the bridegroom but on the king’s invitation.

The focus of the parable seems to be on the response made to this invitation, rather than on the feast itself. A rejection of a king’s invitation to such an important event was unimaginable because it would be political suicide and yet we find the invited guests turning down the invitation not just once but twice and on the second instance, even abusing and killing the king’s emissaries that had been sent to them to persuade them to reconsider the invitation. The first time could be seen as a grievous insult, but the second rejection was an outright act of rebellion. One can then understand the king’s violent response in putting down this rebellion.

When the first group of invited guests were “found to be unworthy”, that is they failed to respond to the invitation, the king sends a second set of servants to gather “everyone.” The Greek word translated into “everyone” suggests “outsiders”, those at the fringes of society. But even though the king seems to have lowered the bar in terms of who gets to attend his son’s wedding banquet, it does not mean that all and sundry would get to enjoy the “sumptuous banquet” of “rich food” and “rich wine.” One man was expelled because he was not wearing the proper attire. Could we be excluded from salvation for one such petty reason as improper dressing? Perhaps, we can find a clue to this symbolism when we heed the words of St Paul that we too must, “clothe ourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you have against one another.” (Colossians 3:12-13)

We finally come to the final saying of our Lord in this passage: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” To describe it as cryptic would be an understatement. It is definitely not suggesting that salvation is for an elite few. Personally, I am comforted by such passages as 1 Timothy 2:4, where Paul says that God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of truth.” So, what does this sentence mean? Saint Jerome says that, “The chosen are those who accept the call and do not reject the invitation, like the first guests, or who do not accept it fully, like the man who comes to the dinner but does not dress in the proper manner.”

Our God came to earth and became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ to prove His love for us and to extend a personal invitation to each and every one of His sons and daughters, to come and join Him at the banquet table that He has prepared for us in His heavenly Kingdom. It is an open invitation. Salvation is not something we earn. It is an invitation that we are free to either accept or reject. Merely claiming that we have received the invitation is no guarantee that one is able to partake in the wedding feast of the kingdom. That invitation must be accepted, not just on our own terms but on God’s terms. So, it is crucial to remember that salvation won by Jesus for the sake of all is not applied automatically; it requires that to attain Eternal Life each individual must, to the extent of his or her understanding, accept and live in the grace won by Christ. We must take care to “clothe ourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience.”

The Mystical Winepress

Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

If you are a wine connoisseur, a drive through the wine producing regions of France like Burgundy and Bordeaux would not only be a sight to behold but also provide many happy wine tasting opportunities. The road trip, however, could also prove to be a painful reality-check. Not all luscious vineyards translate into rich delicious vintage. Behind the veneer of tasty looking grapes hanging like a cornucopia from their vines could be a season of sour grapes.

The prophet Isaiah introduces the first reading as a love song sung for the sake of his friend (in some translations called “the beloved”), concerning his friend’s vineyard. Yet any romantic expectations on the hearers’ part are soon dashed as the love story the prophet sings swiftly turns sour, literally. The prophet describes how his friend had laboured hard to prepare the land for a good harvest: “He dug the soil, cleared it of stones and planted choice vines in it. In the middle he built a tower, he dug a press there too. He expected it to yield grapes, He dug the soil, cleared it of stones but sour grapes were all that it gave.” What a tragic disappointment! The voice of the friend shifts into the voice of the prophet, and finally takes on the voice of God. “The inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah” are called to judge between the vineyard and Him. The theme shifts from a rustic agricultural setting with romantic undertones to a legal court case. The honeymoon is over, the divorce has begun!

We can immediately detect the pain and frustration in God’s rhetorical question: “What could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done? I expected it to yield grapes. Why did it yield sour grapes instead?” The crop of sour grapes is not of His doing because God has done all that is necessary to produce a healthy crop. The sentence pronounced upon the vineyard swiftly follows. Its hedge and wall of protection will be destroyed and it shall be rendered a wasteland bearing thorns and thistles, parched for lack of rain. In the destruction of the vineyard the painful themes of the Fall in Eden are recalled: thorns and thistles will grow where once a well-watered and beautiful garden lay.

If the hearers of Isaiah’s parable were in any doubt, its point is made explicit in the conclusion: “the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah that chosen plant.” The indictment is summed up with a deft poetic twist: “He expected justice, but found bloodshed, integrity, but only a cry of distress.”

Apply the parable of the vineyard to the nation of Israel. God gave His people every advantage and opportunity to repent. They were His chosen nation. They were His beloved Bride and He was Israel’s Bridegroom. Countless times they turned away to serve and follow other gods. With all the work God had put into His vineyard—the people of Israel—He should have been able to expect them to yield a harvest of righteousness. Instead of clusters of sweet grapes, the nation could only produce sour grapes. Time after time, in His love, God called them back. The people couldn’t do it. They kept messing up the plan. Much of the first reading is a warning and being a warning, it is also meant for us too.

Let us now consider our Lord’s updated version in the gospel. Read alongside the first reading, it is very clear that the Lord Jesus intends His hearers to hear His parable against the background of Isaiah’s parable. While clearly standing in line with Isaiah, our Lord offers a new and surprising twist. Once again, it is the fate of the vineyard of Israel that is in question. However, here it is not principally the vineyard itself or the vine of Israel that is judged, but the wicked tenant farmers to whom the vineyard had been entrusted. It is not that the vineyard is failing to produce sweet grapes, but that it is being controlled by tenants who deny the vineyard owner its harvest and treat his emissaries violently. They finally even kill the owner’s son to rob him of his inheritance. These wicked tenants are the sour grapes in Jesus’ story.

The effect of Jesus’ reframing of the prophetic narrative is to shift the emphasis: it is no longer the vineyard itself that is the focus of the divine judgment, but the wicked tenants, who are refusing to give the vineyard owner its produce. The judgment that will befall the vineyard will not be the destruction of the vineyard itself, but the dispossession of the wicked tenants.

In a further twist upon the tale, our Lord introduces the character of the beloved son. He ultimately becomes the victim of violence. The language used by the wicked tenants when they plot the murder of the rightful heir directly recalls the language of Joseph’s brothers when they sold him into Egypt (Genesis 37:20): “This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him and take over his inheritance.” Joseph, sent by his father to inspect the work of his brothers, was violently rejected yet went on to rule over the entire land of Egypt. So the rejection of the beloved Son in Jesus’ parable is the prelude to a radical turning of the tables: as in the case of Joseph, this story of a beloved son who becomes a victim ends dramatically—with the resurrection. Jesus “was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone.”

Now try to picture yourself as that vineyard. Look at the way God has carefully prepared things in your life up to this point. He planted faith in your heart at baptism. He nursed and cultivated and pruned your life of faith. The soil of His Word and Sacraments are there. He provides ongoing nutrition and water through opportunities to use the means of Grace. He speaks His law to wound and convict hearts, and pours out the Gospel to soothe and heal.

And what does He find? Let us hope and pray that He does not find sour grapes. Have we been sour grapes? Despite the surpassing goodness shown by our Beloved God in every area of life, do we still complain that His blessings haven’t been sufficient? Instead of clusters of sweet grapes of gratitude, have we only produced sour grapes of resentment and a bloated sense of entitlement? Instead of clusters of sweet grapes of His people living in peace and harmony with others, has He found the sour grapes of envy and strife and jealousy just like the wicked tenants? Instead of clusters of sweet grapes of forgiveness and kindness displayed among His people, does He only see the sour grapes of impatience and lack of forgiveness?

But the image of the vineyard does not only allude to us. It also points in the first place to Christ, the Bridegroom, the Mystic Winepress and Sacred Vintage. One of the most popular motifs in religious art in the Middle Ages was the depiction of our Lord as the mystic wine press. In most of these images, our Lord Jesus is being pressed down by a cross-like contraption in the shape of a wine press. Blood flows from Christ's wounds into the basin below to form the wine. Christ Himself has become the grapes by which through His passion and death produces the Wine. His sacrifice on the cross has produced the sweetest vintage that promises Eternal Life to those who have the privilege of drinking it. It is a powerful Eucharistic image. Instead of wine produced through the fermentation of grapes, our Lord offers us His own Body and Blood in the Eucharist. At every Eucharist, we encounter Jesus the true Vine, the fertile vineyard that produces the richest and sweetest crop. With the Psalmist, let us tell Him: “we shall never forsake you again; give us life that we may call upon your name.”