The Vineyard Was Planted Before You Got There.

Brother,

Today at Mass you will hear about a man who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug the press, built the tower — and then handed it to other men and left the country.

Everything that could be done had been done before the tenants ever set foot in it.

That is not a metaphor for your life. That is a description of it.

(On the calendar today is St Francis of Assisi. The Sunday liturgy supersedes his memorial.)

What more was there to do

Centuries before the parable, Isaiah sang the same field to his own people. "He digged it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes." (Isaiah 5:2)

Then the question that should stop a man where he stands: "What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (Isaiah 5:4)

The owner is not absent because he is careless. He is absent because he has trusted you with the place. The hedge, the press, the tower — the faith you were handed, the woman who said yes, the children who never chose you, the body that still gets up — you invented none of it. You are the tenant.

And the tenant owes fruit. Not payment — the place is already the owner's. Fruit is what a gift looks like when a man actually works it.

The parable is a mirror

Jesus ends the story hard: "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it." (Matthew 21:43)

Hear the Church on that line before you hear anything else. Today's Gospel names who he is talking to: "Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people." Men who held an office. They are the "you."

That line has been turned against the Jewish people for centuries, and the Catechism shuts the door: "the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture" (CCC 597). Of the Jews the Church says plainly, "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (CCC 839) — and "the Old Covenant has never been revoked" (CCC 121). God has not rejected Israel. The Church has not replaced her. The parable is not a verdict on a people. It is spoken to men who were handed a charge and kept the fruit.

Which is exactly why it is spoken to you. The Catechism says of every parable: "The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received?" (CCC 546). The mirror is pointed at your house this morning. Not at somebody else's.

What the fruit actually is

Fruit is not feeling. Fruit is not intending. "Words are not enough, deeds are required." (CCC 546)

In a home it has a shape, and the Catechism names it. Parents bear witness to their responsibility, it says, "first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule" (CCC 2223). You are half of that. Read the five again and find the one your house does not produce. That is the wild grape.

Now do not go to panic, and do not go to shame. Paul gives the working man his order: "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." (Philippians 4:6)

And the psalm the Church prays today asks it for the vine itself: "Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock which thy right hand planted." (Psalm 80:14-15, RSV-CE)

The owner has never once refused to come back and look.

This week

One act. Today, stand in one room of your house, or one corner of your work, and ask the owner's question out loud: what more was there to do for this, that has not been done? Then do the single smallest deed that produces fruit there. Not a plan. A deed. Make the call. Fix the thing. Ask her forgiveness. Kneel down with the kid.

Then do it again tomorrow. One room, one deed, every day this week.

The Sanctum is built on reps.

Altar. Arms. Allegiance.

— The Sanctum Dispatch

On the channel

The short films are on YouTube — subscribe at youtube.com/@1765Sanctum so they find you.

P.S. — Which of the five did you land on: tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, or disinterested service? One word, no explanation needed. Hit reply — I read every reply.

One last thing this week. A vineyard gets worked on a schedule, not on a mood. The Rule of Life Field Manual is a free 7-day field manual — the Examen, the Rosary, monthly Confession, Friday fasting, hidden almsgiving and the rest, one discipline at a time. Free PDF, delivered instantly, unsubscribe anytime: 1765sanctumco.com/rule-of-life

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America Copyright © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with Permission. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright © 1997, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For God.  For country.  For the fight.

In Christ and Our Lady,
Will
Founder, 1765 Sanctum Co.