Sunday Meditation: Tragedy and Still Bearing Fruit

On the First Sunday of Lent, we saw Jesus meet the Devil in the desert as He underwent temptations.  On the Second Sunday, we saw Jesus go up a mountain and be transfigured before three of His disciples.  So one comes to the Third Sunday of Lent expecting an even greater scene, but what we get is a simple parable of the fig tree.  That would strike us as a letdown.  But Jesus prefaces the parable with two monumental events: Pilate butchering some Galileans at the Temple and the collapse of a tower killing eighteen people.  What’s the connection?  It’s a very Lenten connection.

 

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans

whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.

Jesus said to them in reply,

“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way

they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?

By no means!

But I tell you, if you do not repent,

you will all perish as they did!

Or those eighteen people who were killed

when the tower at Siloam fell on them—

do you think they were more guilty

than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?

By no means!

But I tell you, if you do not repent,

you will all perish as they did!”

 

And he told them this parable:

“There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard,

and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none,

he said to the gardener,

‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree

but have found none.

So cut it down.

Why should it exhaust the soil?’

He said to him in reply,

‘Sir, leave it for this year also,

and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;

it may bear fruit in the future.

If not you can cut it down.’”

~Lk 13:1-9

What really catches my eye on this passage are the two tragedies that Jesus alludes to.  I can’t say I ever really noticed them before.  First He says that the sins of those who met the tragic ends were not the cause of the tragedy.  And then He implores everyone to repent of their sins.  Is this a contradiction?  Fr. Tim Peters in his Catholic Bible Studies explains.

Untimely death can cause you to be perished if you have not repented.  So which is the real tragedy, the catastrophic death or the forever separated from God?  I hadn’t posted Fr. Tim before, but I really like his Bible Studies.

Here is another priest I have not posted before for the pastoral homily, Fr. Eric De La Pena, a Franciscan Friar of the Companions of St. Anthony.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.”

 

 

Instead of a hymn, I want to share this short homily by Fr. Vincent Bernhard who provides another great insight on this rich Gospel passage. 

 

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving tends to the ground which will bear fruit.