A vineyard prepared with Love

“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.” Matthew 21:33

When I sat down to read this Sunday’s Gospel, I confess I couldn’t get past the first paragraph. I stopped right there, and a feeling of immense tenderness struck me as I imagined God as a father. Think for a moment about the level of detail: He Himself prepares the land, sets it up, builds a hedge to protect it, digs the wine press, and raises a tower. He does the heavy lifting, leaves everything in perfect condition so it can bear the best possible fruit, and then… He entrusts it to others. He goes away and leaves His precious land in the care of tenants, with complete trust that they will do the right thing.

That image of a God who dedicates so much time, effort, and affection to hand us something so beautifully prepared moved me deeply.

But this is where the parable confronts us with our own reality: we are the tenants in the story.

God has leased us a beautiful “vineyard”: our lives, our family, our work, our talents, our money, and our time. He prepared all of that with love for us. However, we easily forget that we are stewards and begin to act as owners. We claim the fruits for ourselves. We believe that everything we achieve is solely from our own effort, and little by little, we leave God out of the equation.

As we step into this new week, it helps to remember with gratitude who did the heavy lifting first. A beautiful thought to carry with us might be to identify a “vineyard” God has placed in our hands, and dedicate 5 minutes in silence to simply thank Him for trusting us with it. We can ask Him to remind us that it belongs to Him, and pray for the grace to manage it according to His heart.

Carolina Belmar
Parish Pastoral Council