Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Things take time to grow. We see it all around us in the natural world, things take time to grow also to mature. In our young lives, for a while, our bodies outpace our minds in coming to maturity. When I was 18 I considered myself to be very mature, but looking back, even into my early 20s, in hindsight, I can see that my lack of experience of life meant that I did not have a fully formed sense of myself, others, or the world. Maybe I was just a slow developer.

In our world things take time to change. Take a vineyard, from planting to the first crop it takes four years. Four years in which initially not much seems to happen. The planter has to be patient. For the vineyard owner patience eventually brings the reward of wine and even wealth. The image of the people of God as a vineyard was a favourite of the Old Testament writers, we see it this Sunday in the reading from Isaiah, again in the psalm, and then in the Gospel. In Jesus' time on earth everyone knew what a vineyard was and what they were and are capable of. The image of vineyard would not have been lost on the people at time, also those people today who are used to seeing them in France, Italy and elsewhere, even in England.

We are used to Jesus using parables, as Jesus does this week with the divine vineyard, however the reading from the prophet Isaiah is also a parable. The people listening to Jesus, particularly the chief priests and the elders, would have known the Isaiah passage by heart. Today’s Jesus’ vineyard story immediately follows last weeks gospel where he tells the religious VIPs that those who believe in him, the lowest of the low who we probably would not want to be associated with either, will enter God’s kingdom before them. Putting these two stories together would have shocked and appalled the great and the good, and there is yet more to come from Jesus in the same vein next week.

As with all Jesus’ parables we are invited to place ourselves into the story. Who are you in Jesus' story? Are you the good master who is generous in supporting people to live a good and productive life; are you the good servant who follows the master’s instructions regardless of the consequences for yourself; are you the evil tenant who sees and seizes a chance out of the malice of their heart; maybe you are a tenant who sees what the others are doing and are appalled by their actions.

Strange maybe, but perhaps you are the vine, you have slowly and quietly matured in fruitfulness and goodness over the years regardless of what goes on around you, and the fruit of your slow growth and maturation in the life of faith is almost ready for the harvest of the heavenly vinedresser.

As I mentioned earlier, vineyards and garden images are used a lot in scripture. God offers us the delightful garden and vineyard as an image of the kingdom. He offers to share the garden of His kingdom with us. Not as tenants but as His beloved sons and daughters. A place where we can walk with God forever in grace and beauty in the cool of the evening, just as Adam and Eve did at the dawn of earthly creation.

In the life of faith we are on the road to that place. The signposts on the road are to be found in Sunday's second reading from St Paul, by living in truth, honour, justice, purity, love, and whatever we know to be commendable in life as a son and daughter of the Most High. 

This is a big lifelong challenge, how can we ever live up to this? All of us know that in our frailty and weakness, we can’t, but we have the advocate always with us – the Holy Spirit; we have the divine mercy of our brother and Saviour – the Lord Jesus who died to save us; and the boundless love and compassion of our Heavenly Father. The task is, with God's help, to strive for the life of eternity in our earthly lives and we are told that the God of peace will be with us today and always. 

Please accept an assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. The week after next I am in Rome, be assured of my prayers for you at the holy places.

God bless and keep you always.

Fr Chris