Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 18, 2022
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
“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.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they knew that he was speaking about them.
And although they were attempting to arrest him,
they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.
Consider the landowner in this parable. He prepares the soil. He plants the crop. He even provides a winepress to transform the fruit into wine, yet he goes away for the seemingly crucial step—the harvest.
The landowner does not go to obtain his produce. He sends the servants of the tenants to procure it, and not merely that, but eventually sends his son to gather the crop. The seeds he planted with care he entrusts to others to give back to him. The fruit grows ripe and ready. We can imagine clusters of grapes, bright and firm, their weight bending the vines, but it remains there, perhaps growing dark and rotting, for lack of a proper harvest.
How do we harvest the fruit of good works in our own lives, and to whom do we give it? We may find it easy to go directly to the landowner. We go to Mass, light a candle at the Grotto, look forward to an hour of Eucharistic Adoration. But do we consider the people around us—those whom the landowner has sent into our lives at a particular moment? Do we act towards them as we would toward the Lord himself?
There are many of those subtle opportunities in the life of a student. Perhaps I still have lots of reading to do for a class or another paper to write when a friend comes by and needs to talk. Am I like the tenants throwing her out, or do I hear her out and allow her to harvest the fruit of love and hope through me?
As we prepare to celebrate the Paschal Mysteries, let us ask ourselves, for whom do we bear fruit? May we strive to produce the fruit of charity, which is in season at all times and for all people.
Prayer
Lord, teach us to be filled with you and emptied of an ego that puts our glory over your glory. Let us be your ambassador. Give us your voice and direct our motives this day that we might produce the fruits of the kingdom. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Cyril of Jerusalem is a revered figure in the Palestinian Christian community and is one of the thirty-seven Doctors of the Church.
Cyril was born around the year 313 AD, the same year in which Christianity was declared legal in the Roman Empire when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan. According to Butler's Lives of the Saints, Cyril was a well-educated young man, who grew up in or near the city of Jerusalem. He was educated in classical Greek philosophy and read Christian Scripture and the Church Fathers. Around 350 AD, Cyril became the bishop of Jerusalem. During the fourth century, Christian thinkers were wrestling with many different strands of thought, and discerning which were orthodox and which were heretical. These philosophical and theological debates caused tensions between the different Christian communities.
Cyril had a particularly fraught relationship with the bishop of Caesarea, the beautiful Mediterranean town to the north of Jerusalem, where Herod the Great had built his luxurious palace. The Bishop of Caesarea, Acacius, is characterized as an Arian bishop (meaning a bishop who subscribed to the belief that Jesus was not eternally begotten by the Father before time began), and Cyril was an orthodox Christian, which probably contributed to their strained relationship. Additionally, during the fourth century, Jerusalem, originally a smaller episcopal see, began rising in prominence, as Constantine and Helena discovered the true cross, the site of Golgotha, and the legality of Christianity led to increased building of shrines, churches, and floods of pilgrims coming from all over the empire to this small section of the Mediterranean coastline.
Acacius accused Cyril of selling Church valuables—vestments and imperial gifts—without permission. During the 350s, there was a famine in Jerusalem, and Cyril is supposed to have sold Church treasures to buy food for his people. Acacius had Cyril deposed in 357 by a council of bishops sympathetic to Acacius. In 359, Cyril was restored to his see—only to suffer a continual stream of exiles and returns as various emperors ascended and descended from the throne.
Perhaps, as a result of finding himself at the mercy of powers outside of himself, Cyril's writings focus on the loving and forgiving nature of our merciful God. The Holy Spirit, writes Cyril, "comes with the tenderness of a true friend to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, and to console." His writing was used to instruct those preparing for Baptism in the Christian faith. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures still inspire and encourage Christians to this day:
As Christ after His Baptism, and the visitation of the Holy Ghost, went forth and vanquished the adversary, so likewise ye, after Holy Baptism and the Mystical Chrism, having put on the whole armor of the Holy Ghost, are to stand against the power of the adversary, and vanquish it, saying, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).
Finally, in 378, Cyril returned to his beloved hometown and remained there until his death in 386AD. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1883.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, an early witness to the sacred sites of Christian devotion—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Cyril of Jerusalem is in the public domain. Last accessed February 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
