In today's mass there was this gospel reading. I've found a really nice interpretation on the Internet concerning this reading, Gospel Commentary . He speaks about how it was commonly accepted that the vineyard represents Gods people and how as they have killed his prophets in the past they will also kill his son, Jesus. From working on the previous post, however, one of the passages in the Volumes reminded me of this gospel verse so I will take a little detour from the line I was following to explore this one today as it seems God is prodding me to do so.
33 “Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; 35 and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. 37 Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:
‘The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
has become the head of the corner;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because they held him to be a prophet.
Matthew 21: 33-43, 45-46
This passage has also often been used to justify the opening of the works of God to the gentiles and Jesus himself, in Volume 4, speaks on how the Jewish Nation had received the most grace and yet was the most sterile whereas other nations produced greater fruit.
“My daughter, how terrible it can be for those
souls who have been much fecundated by my grace, but have not corresponded to
it. The Jewish nation was the favorite one, the most fecundated, and yet,
the most sterile; and the whole of my Person could not obtain that fruit which
Paul obtained in other nations, less fecundated, but more corresponding.
In fact, lack of correspondence to grace blinds the soul, it makes her deceive
herself, and disposes her to obstinacy, even in the face of any miracle.”
Vol. 4, March 9, 1903
There was a previous post, The Fruitful Land, where I explored the marriage covenant between the creature and God and how the land and earth are common images of the creature. I won't recover that material but it's there for those who are interested. In the above gospel I'd never seen the interpretation which Jesus expounds in this passage. Here Jesus tells Luisa that it is God's aim to form, grow and mature completed acts in the creature but this can only occur in a creature living in the Divine Will. When we don't live in the Divine Will we break his acts and they remain incomplete and as handicapped. When we operate with our own wills we frustrate the plans of the owner of vineyard from his designs on it. Jesus clearly states that the earth represents his creatures and the ungrateful servants are our own human volitions which frustrate his works and kill his designs.
“My good daughter, only my Volition maintains and conserves intact, with a continuous act, the beginning of the Creation of the creature. Our Supreme Being gave the beginning and animated her life with the power of our divine breath; this breath should not ever be broken, more so that when we give and we do an act we never withdraw it, and this serves in order to form the completed work of the being that we put forth to the light. This first act of ours, while it serves to give beginning and to form the life, the continuation, it serves in order to make of the creature a completed act of ours, and as we breathe (in) her thus we form in her our continuous acts in order to complete our divine life. Our breath, as we give it, forms sip by sip the growth of this life of ours in the creature. Our breath, as it gives itself, thus it forms our completed act of sanctity, of beauty, of love, of goodness and so on, and when we have filled her so much, in a way that we don’t have anywhere more to put our act in the creature, because she is limited, our breath ceases and her life finishes in earth, and in order to immortalize our breath in Heaven, we transport our fully grown life in her, our completed act, into our Celestial Country as triumph of our Creation. There is no more beautiful rarity than these lives and completed acts of ours in the Celestial sojourn, they are the narrators of our power, of the enthusiasm of our love, they are speaking voices of our omnipotent breath, that alone could form the divine life, our completed act in the creature. But do you know where we can form this life and this completed act of ours, for how much it is possible and imaginable for a creature to receive from her Creator? [In] the soul that lives in our Divine Will and lets herself be dominated by Him. Ah! only in her can we form the divine life and develop our completed act; our Volition disposes the creature to receive all the qualities and divine colors, and our breath not ever interrupted, as expert brush/(artist), paints with admirable and inimitable mastery the most beautiful tones and forms there the images of our Supreme Being; if it might not be for these images there would not have been that great work of the Creation, nor great work of the power of our creative hands, creating the Sun, the Sky, the stars and all the universe would have been a beautiful nothing for our power. But instead all our power, the art of our divine arts, the indescribable excess of our intense love, it is to do our completed act in the creature with forming our life in her and so much is our gratification, that we ourselves remain enraptured in our act that we develop. For us to do a completed act it is the greatest glory that glorifies us most, it is the most intense love that praises us most, it is the power that praises us continually. But alas! for one who doesn’t live in our Volition, how many broken acts of ours, without conclusion, how many divine lives of ours hardly conceived or at the most born without growing. [Creatures] break the continuation of our work and bind our arms without being able to go ahead; they put us in the impotence of a master who holds his earth and is prevented by his ungrateful servants from doing the work that he wants to in his earth, to sow it, to plant the plants that he wants; poor proprietor, to hold sterile earth, without the fruit that he could receive, for reason of his iniquitous servants. Our earths are creatures and the ungrateful servant is the human volition, which opposing ours with hers puts us in impotence from forming our divine life in them. Now you should know that in Heaven one doesn’t enter if one doesn’t possess our divine life, or at least conceived or born, and such will be the glory, the beatitude of the blessed, for how much growth has been formed of our life in them. Now what will be the difference for one who has hardly let him be conceived, be born or grown with little proportions, from one who has let us form complete life? So much will be the difference, that it is incomprehensible to the human creature. Those will be as the people of the Celestial kingdom, instead our images will be as princes, ministers, the noble court, the regal army of the great King. Therefore one who does my Divine Will and lives in Him can say: ‘I do all and I also belong from this earth to the family of my Celestial Father.’”
Vol. 29, October 12, 1931I had never thought of this gospel before where we are both the vineyard and the murderous tenets. But with this in mind when Jesus says: "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it..." it does give me pause especially in light of the gospel on the talents.
14 “For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. 17 So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’
Matthew 25:14-30
We are to be held responsible for corresponding with God. He is the true and rightful owner of us and we are the earth were he wants to develop his acts. Even with corresponding to grace we will not produce complete acts. We have to live in his Will so that he can achieve his complete designs we can't do it. If we hold something back from him and live under our own will we will always be to one degree or another the ungrateful servant who cheats God from his due.
