“My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46).
I have been reflecting on the parable of the vineyard. In this parable, Christ tells the story of a householder who planed a vineyard and then left his tenants to look after it. And then when the fruit was ready to be collected, the tenants refused to hand the fruit over. First the servants were killed and later his own son was killed trying to collect what was due to the Master…
“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. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another… Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him.” (Matthew 21:33-43).
And I have been reflecting on that because that vineyard is the world. And God made this beautiful world and left it with me as a tenant. And then – after He left it in my care – I refused to give to Him what was His due. And that means that I have not done what I was born to do.
And this is why the Saints thought nothing of giving their lives to God. After all, if a soul is able to return to God all the gifts that they have been given, they have lost nothing – for those gifts were never theirs in the first place… So when I neglect God in the pursuit of fame and fortune, in the pursuit of money and Earthly things, what I am really doing is behaving like the tenants who refused to give back to God what God had left in their care.
You see, God leave me all the gifts of my life – my talents and my beauty and my health and all the other things that I simply take for granted. And He wants me to keep those things in my care and when the time comes, to return them to Him. And the mistake that I seem to be making – over and over again – is to think that I have some sort of right to the gifts of my life. When instead, those gifts were only lent to me while I live on this Earth, and are only provided to me for the purpose of giving glory to God.
And when I think about that today, I hang my head a little in shame, for the Blessed Virgin said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46) and all I ever say is look at me, look at me…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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