“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.”

"Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing" it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.” ― Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Gospel Text: (MK 12:1-12)
Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes,
and the elders in parables.
“A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.
At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants
to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.
But they seized him, beat him,
and sent him away empty-handed.
Again he sent them another servant.
And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
He sent yet another whom they killed.
So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed.
He had one other to send, a beloved son.
He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
So they seized him and killed him,
and threw him out of the vineyard.
What then will the owner of the vineyard do?
He will come, put the tenants to death,
and give the vineyard to others.
Have you not read this Scripture passage:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?”
They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd,
for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them.
So they left him and went away.

What kind of tenants are we? Do we oppose those in charge of helping us give the fruits God expects?

I believe that what Jesus has taught us today through the gospel is that God is putting the care of his people in our hands. This is a sign of his respect for us and of his hope in us, but he does not expect us to build the Church or even to give him praise and service under our own initiative and power: Jesus gives us the Spirit to remind us of what he said and to give us the ability, encouragement, and strength to do so.

So the question then becomes what sort of a Church God is hoping for us to build. I would say that it is a Church in his own image, one of Good News, of healing, of forgiveness, and of loving service to all but especially to those who feel like the least and the most lost.

Unfortunately, many object to the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church and of the Pope, the bishops, or perhaps, more modestly, those of our parents, or a good friend of ours who is trying to help us. We may even become aggressive, and try to wound them or even kill them through criticism and negative comments. We should examine ourselves about the real motives behind such an attitude on our part. Maybe we need a deeper knowledge of our Faith; maybe we need a deeper knowledge of ourselves, a better examination of conscience to discover the “real” reason why we are acting this way.

One final thought for today; one each of us should meditate upon.

We can all be “good shepherds” and “fishers” of men. «Let us (…) ask the Lord to help us to bear fruit, a fruit that abides. Only thus is the earth transformed from a vale of tears into a garden of God» (Benedict XVI).