The Devastated Vineyard

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

“Let me sing of my friend, my friend song concerning his vineyard. My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choices, vines. within it He built a watchtower and chewed out a wine press. Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes, very sour, miserable little grapes. The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the people of Judah are his cherished plant. He looked for judgment, but see bloodshed for justice, but heart the outcry.” St. John Paul, when he was commenting on this passage, he said that the vine represents Israel. And he says it illustrates two important, two aspects of Israel. He says, on the one hand, since it has been planted by God, it represents the gift, grace, and love of God, so there’s something from God, there’s a great gift from God in Israel. But he says on the other, it demands the labor to human response, or personal effort, and the fruit of good deeds. So there’s what is of God and Israel, and there is also what calls for human cooperation. And so in the people of God, there’s those two parts, there’s the people, and there’s God, there’s what is of God, all the graces that He gives, but there’s also the people. And then so all will depend on the people’s response. So what does this mean for us today? Because that’s Israel, right? These words were given many 1000s of years ago, what does it mean for us today? We remember that the Church sees itself as the new Israel, the new people of God. So the Church is the prolongation and fulfillment of Israel. It has its roots in Israel. And so we see these two elements in the Church, because the Church is also the people of God. And so there’s what is of God, the graces in the Church that come from God, who founded it, and continues to be present and guided and inspired. But there’s also our human cooperation, which can be very good, or which can be terrible. So a lot depends on that. And so when we read these passages about Israel, it’s also a warning for us in our Church. Because the reading goes on to say, “because after all that was done for this vine, and it produces sour grapes.” And we, we’ve had some of those mustang grapes here at the Mission. They’re terrible, right? And so then, what is that, what happens? He says, “Now inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do from my vineyard that I had not done? Why when I looked for a crop of grapes that had bring forth a wild grapes.” And so he says, “Now I will tell you what I mean to do with my vineyard. What I will do with this vineyard because of its response, I will take away its hedge, its protection. I will give it a grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled. Yes, I will make it a ruin. And it shall not be pruned or hood but overgrown with thorns and briars. I will command the clouds descend down no rain upon it.” And so God gives His graces but there’s consequences depending on our response. And the consequences can be terrible consequences that can involve also a lot of innocent suffering. And in the Psalm today we have Psalm 80 which speaks to these consequences. It says, “How long Oh Lord, God of host will you be angry at the prayer of your people? You have fed them with tears for their bread, and abundance of tears for their drink. You have made us the taunt of our neighbors; our foes mock us among themselves. Why have you broken down its walls, it is plucked by all who pass by, it is ravaged by the bore of the forest, devoured by the beast of the field.”  And what I am thinking as ravaged by the border the force, we have, you know we have feral hogs here at the mission and that’s a constant battle and so much of what we do is fight against the feral hogs. Like we had a beautiful irrigation system for our landscape in front of the O’Callahan center, but the wild hogs destroyed it. And so this is just an example of the ravaging that these boars can do. And so this is speaking of the, so this is a very serious, severe passage, speaking of what happens when the people are unfaithful to God. And as I say, it’s an important reflection for the Church. And even that, even that very severe punishment, though, is also a mercy, because it’s designed to wake His people up to alert us to save us from hell.   And so as I say, this is important for the Church to say, what is the Lord saying today to the Church. Because it’s important when there’s a crisis, the sooner we recognize it, the better. For instance, sometimes a person has, say, like a person discovers very late that they had a cancer which has been growing in their body, which has spread throughout the body, and they may discover when it’s too late, they didn’t realize how dangerous the situation was. Sometimes there’s terrible crises, but many people are not aware of it. Well, one thing that comes to my mind when I think of this is in the 90s, I was serving down in Monterey, and a big city in Mexico. And we were in a poor inner city, neighborhood. The bishop at one point came to celebrate a Mass there and living there for a few years, I became very aware of all the problems that were there and I remember the bishop, the auxiliary bishop was preaching. And he was talking about how great things were going because his evidence that things are going so great, he says that we have these five pastoral committees of Catechesis and liturgy and youth and so forth. Five pastoral committees in each parish and in the deanery level and at the zone level, and at the Archdiocese level. And so that he was very proud of that.  He had been one of the ones were involved in it, but I thought the danger is the thing that committees are the solution to the problem. And to think that just because we’ve multiplied committees, that we’ve solved the problems, the sooner we realize that there’s a crisis in the Church, the better like one book that that illustrates this well as Ralph Martin’s book, A Church in Crisis, A Church in Crisis, averted just a couple of years ago, and he has a lot of experience with the Church. Heaven may see things that we don’t see, or we see as normal. That just to give you one famous example, this was in Fatima before the before Blessed Mother appeared to the children in 1960. And I think an angel appeared to the three children at Fatima. And at one point the angel appeared with holding the Chalice and the Consecrated Host, and the angel left it suspended in midair. And this was out in the fields the children were out with their flock and the angel bowed down and prostrate itself to the ground and taught the children a prayer that the angels praying, they’re prostrated before the Blessed Sacrament. And part of it I’ll just read you part of that prayer. The angel said, “I offer Thee most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles throughout the world, in reparation.” For what? In reparation the angel says, “For the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended.” In reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is offended. And then a moment later the angel said to the children, “take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men.” The Body and Blood of Jesus horribly outraged by ungrateful men, “make reparation for their crimes, and console your God.” So this was over 100 years ago, the angel was speaking about how terrible as the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences towards the Blessed Sacrament, which has horribly outraged God.  In those 100 years have we solved that problem? Is that no longer a problem in the Church? Have we fixed that? There’s no longer outrageous, sacrilegious and indifferences, or has the situation gotten much, much worse. In regards to reverence to the Blessed Sacrament, I think it’s undeniable that it’s gotten, in many ways, much worse. And so what seems often as I say, what can seem normal to us because it’s so widespread, the angel is waking these children up to some situation, that is not normal. That is a crisis. I’ve often spoken of the doctrinal and moral confusion that our Church has been experiencing, especially for the last, say, 50 or 60 years. Right now, this is a critical time in the Church where there’s a Synod going on in Rome, a Synod where some are hoping that there’ll be important changes in the Church. And some are very concerned that there’ll be bad changes in the Church. But I think it’s, as I say, undeniable, even just that this statistically, it’s very clear the numbers show there’s something wrong going on. Because since the 1960s, there’s been a great decline in the number of Catholics going to Church. The percentage of Catholics going to church was steadily growing until the mid-1960s, and then it began a long decline. And the same thing with vocations to priesthood and religious life to such a point that many religious communities are dying out. You know, our archdiocese, which I think, San Antonio, at least this was some years ago, at least percentage wise it was the most Catholic of any large city in the United States. But in this archdiocese, I’m just about to go to a convocation of priests, but over, I think over half of the priests in the archdiocese come from outside the Archdiocese, are coming from all sorts of countries, often countries who have less priests than we do.  But that’s a sign that there’s something wrong, that there’s so few vocations, it’s not a good sign. And so many people leaving the Church, I’ve cited this statistic where for every one person entering the Church, there’s six persons leaving the Church. That’s a sign of a crisis. And it also if you look at the statistics for baptisms, and marriages, it’s the same thing. So this is not a secret. It’s very, for anyone whose eyes are open, it’s very evident. And so, and I know our little Mission of Divine Mercy, is in a moment of discernment about what we’re supposed to do, I think the Lord may be calling us to, to a new step in this situation. But then we have the gospel. And it which helps the gospel helps focus on why is this happening, and who is responsible? Who is Jesus speaking to in the Gospel? It says, the chief priest, and the elders, the religious leaders. So there is a very serious accusation in this gospel. It’s slightly hidden in the parable, but just slightly hidden. And soon it would become very clear. Jesus’s revealing who is primarily responsible for that, it’s the religious authorities. Those who should be defending the faith of Israel, are these ones who are rejecting the Messiah. They’re acting not as stewards, and servants, but as usurpers. He says they’re rejecting the prophets that God is sending, the people that God is sending. And that’s a key point that we often made here at the Mission, that the prophets is not just something that happened in Israel, God continues to send His messengers, His prophets. We have a great example here with St. Faustina and St. John Paul is another example. But what we see this in a parable, the religious leaders, reject them, and even reject the very Son of God, reject God Himself. Those who should be the defenders of God’s people are rejecting God Himself. And again, so that’s a very serious grave accusation that Jesus is making, and He will pay for it with His life. And so what does this say to the Church? The Church is the responsibility of all of us. We had a couple of weeks ago, where the gospel of Jesus is calling all of us to work in His vineyard. Today, again, we have the vineyard. But it’s first of all, the responsibility of the pastors of the Church. The pastors, all those who are in special roles of authority. There’s the little pastors like myself and other priests, and deacons. And there’s the big pastors, the bishops, the Cardinals, the Pope. And then there’s also other people who have special roles of responsibility in the Church, like professors, or teachers or administrators. In the history of the Church, we see that there can be great saints in these roles. And I think, for instance, St. John Paul is an example of a great saint at the highest level. But the history of the Church also shows that there can be corruption at all the levels and even at the highest level. And there’s been way too many examples of this, tragic examples. And one example that we’ve had just recently, in our country, very high profile was Cardinal McCarrick, who was perhaps the most influential Cardinal in the United States, one of the most in the Church, and responsible for a lot of a lot of priests who are later named bishops. And then it later became, he was the one who was put in charge, I forget what the position was, but in 2002, when there was the response to the clergy abuse scandal, he was the one put in charge of the new program to against that abuse in the United States. And then it later became clear that he was very much an abuser himself. to such a point where he has been now, His whole ministry has been removed. But a sign that’s a sign of this terrible tragic clerical sexual abuse that was covered up for so long. And is one of the terrible signs of this corruption, of how many victims have been so wounded in their body, and especially in their hearts. How many people have turned away from God, because of this, and then all so much money that has been donated to good causes have gone to legal payouts. And this has damaged so much the trust in the Church and weakens her, weakens the ability of the Church to speak out. And so, this, so these readings are helping us to look realistically, clearly at the crisis, and the causes of the crisis and the consequences of the crisis. And so it’s important to realize this, so that we don’t lose hope, we don’t lose faith, which has happened. So many people, so many Catholics have lost their faith because of this. It’s important to realize that in the Church, as I said, there’s the part which is human and can be sometimes terribly corrupt. But there is still a divine mystery. And our faith is in the divine mystery, it’s not in the human response. And so these readings today, if they help us to be realistic, also are called to strengthen our hope. Because already recognizing clearly a problem is an important beginning to solve it. If we recognize a problem, we can begin to respond to it. So St. John Paul, speaking about this Psalm, Psalm 80, that we have today. He says, it’s a psalm that is strongly marked by suffering, but also by indestructible trust. God is always ready to return to His people, but His people must also return to Him in conversion. And so here’s some more passages, hopeful passages from the song, “give ear, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth, stir up your mind and come to save us. Restore us, oh, God, let your face shine that we may be saved. Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand.” Who is the man of your right hand? It’s first of all, Jesus Himself, “the son of man, whom you have made strong for yourself. Then we will never turn back from you. Give us life and we will call on your name restore us oh Lord God of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved.” Bishop Strickland had, a couple of weeks ago, a beautiful passage when he said that the truth has a face, and the face is Jesus, the face of Jesus, let your face the face of truth, the face of Jesus Christ shine in our Church and in our world. So the Psalm is a calling that when we recognize our sinfulness, we can turn to the Lord to restore us. And so I think the Church is, especially today, as the Catechism says that the Catechism says, the Church must follow the Pascall mystery of Jesus, in which the Church also will suffer and terribly and be betrayed and abandoned, and tortured the way Jesus was. But this is not the end of the Church. This is the preparation for its great renewal and glorification, so it can be purified, and emerge victorious. And so Scripture calls us to be realistic, and alert, and prepared. But to always have trust and hope in God, “oh Lord God of hosts, bring us back, let your face shine on us, and we shall be saved.” Right now this, it’s like the Church, like St. Paul the sixth said, it is like this terrible clouds of satan that have enveloped the Church. But we pray that the Lord shine once again, His faith, His face of majesty upon the Church. And so we listen to those words of our Blessed Mother at Fatima who promised that, in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph. And Saint Faustina, in the great revelations that she received are one of the signs, these hopeful signs of the triumph of God’s mercy. And so as we prepare to receive in this Mass, His sacramental body, to be united to Him, it’s to grow in union with Him, to follow Him faithfully, so that we can triumph, for Him. So that through this crisis, the Church can be renewed, purified, and restored. And so I’ll just end with these words of St. Paul, words of great trust. “Have no anxiety at all.” So we have to be aware of what’s happening, but not be overcome with anxiety. “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Isaiah 5:1-7
Matthew 21:33-43
Psalms 80:9,12,13-14,15-16, 19-20