Even though I will be away on retreat with the Secular Carmelite group this weekend down at the Visitation monastery in Mobile, Alabama, I still wrote this homily for this weekend:
We hear a lot of references to vineyards in our readings at Mass today. With this reference to nature and to God’s creation, we can take this opportunity to reflect upon these readings through the spirituality of St Francis of Assisi, since we celebrated his feast day this past week. St Francis is a popular figure in today’s world not only for his love of nature, but also for the unity he saw in all of creation, for the way he saw everything in our world coming forth from the love of God, our creator.
Isaiah prophesies today about God’s vineyard, about the choice grapes that the Lord planted and tended with care, about how they have become wild grapes. This message foretells Israel’s upcoming destruction due to people straying from their faith. Isaiah tells the people of Israel that they have not lived up to God’s hopes and expectations. I wonder: how would God view us? Look at all of the gifts the world has to offer us, at the individual talents and gifts each one of us has been given from God. We can ask ourselves if we are good stewards of these talents and gifts, if we as individuals and as a society use them respectfully, or if we squander these talents and resources in ways that are against God’s will. We are indeed the body of Christ here the Church, but in many ways St Francis thought of all nature and all creation as God’s body as well. St Francis gloried in the beauty of God’s creation that is all around us.
When I think of God’s creation, I think of the beauty of the rainforest that I experienced as missionary in Ecuador. I would travel all over the rain forest jungles in a canoe, on foot, and sometimes on horseback. Almost every weekend for those three years as a missionary, I would travel 4 hours in a canoe to a village called San Francis, named after St Francis of Assisi. Even though I would journey there every weekend, I never tired of traveling through the vast rainforest. I was in awe of its presence, of the trees, plants, and animals in this beautiful ecosystem. Yet, when I saw how fast the lumber companies were cutting down the trees in the jungle without replanting or caring about what they were destroying, it called me to think about our stewardship of God’s creation.
Many of the poor in Ecuador had few opportunities for education or work, so it made me appreciate even more all of the opportunities and resources that we have here in the United States. We are still a very rich nation, but there are many in our country who are suffer a great deal. Our Church acknowledges that there is not a magical solution or easy answers that will cure poverty or cure our society’s problems. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis asserts that “growth in justice requires more than economic growth… it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms, and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.”
St Francis of Assisi saw all of creation bound together by the Holy Spirit; he saw all of creation as a part of the brotherhood and sisterhood we have in Christ; he saw the fire, the wind, and the sun as our brothers; the moon, the water, and the earth as our sisters. In contrast to St Francis and his holistic view of creation, we have a group of wicked tenants in the Gospel today. The Lord was the landowner of their vineyard. He sent his prophets and his son to bring his message; the tenants killed those messengers, rejecting the covenant they had with the Lord. As we live and work in the vineyard of the Lord, do we see ourselves as connected to him, as having a responsibility as his disciples? Do we follow the will of God with humility and obedience, or are we as selfish, arrogant, and recalcitrant like those tenants in our Gospel? May the Lord come first in our lives. May we follow the Gospel of Life. May we see ourselves as good stewards of God’s creation.
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