Message of Abbot Paul - Saturday 22nd October 2022
Abbot Paul • October 22, 2022
It seems hard to believe, but we’re fast coming to the end of October. With little more than a week to go, we will soon be celebrating All Saints and All Souls and then begin ploughing at breakneck speed through November. It’s barely two months to Christmas, but what sort of Christmas will it be this year? The way the world and this country are going, I’d rather not think about it, other than as it should be, a faith-filled religious festival. I have always loved Advent, Christmas and the Epiphany, especially the Epiphany, and find the over-commercialisation of some aspects and total ignorance and lack of interest in others painful indeed. One of the advantages of monastic life is that we truly celebrate all feasts as religious festivals, but I feel really sorry for those who don’t, can’t or won’t. Rant over for the day!
Our Gospel reading, as we keep the feast of Pope St John Paul II, comes from Luke, (Lk 13: 1-9), and has people coming to Jesus and asking him to explain the significance of recent deaths from persecution and accident. “Some people arrived and told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices. At this he said to them, ‘Do you suppose these Galileans who suffered like that were greater sinners than any other Galileans? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell and killed them? Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.’” Two recent historic events are brought to Jesus’ attention and those asking him want to know how he interprets them in the light of who he is. Jesus does not see God as punishing people for their sins. Nevertheless, God calls them through Jesus to repentance, as indeed he calls us today. To explain what he means, he tells them a parable, that of the fig tree.
“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it but found none. He said to the man who looked after the vineyard, ‘Look here, for three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down: why should it be taking up the ground?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied ’leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it: it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’” It’s a lovely parable, beautifully told by Jesus. It explains why the Father sent his Son to earth, to give us all an extra chance to put things right and begin to bear the fruit that God wants to see us bringing forth, just like a fig tree. There is no richer, no more delicious fruit than figs freshly picked from the tree with the morning dew still on them. I have such wonderful memories from Greece and Italy of collecting figs at dawn and enjoying them for breakfast with freshly baked crispy bread: a wonderful symbol of what we could be, humanly speaking, with a little more care and effort combining with God’s grace.
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