Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – 04th October 2026
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today’s Gospel speaks of “a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower.” He did everything necessary for the vineyard to bear fruit. Then he entrusted it to tenants and went away.
The trouble begins when the tenants forget a simple truth: the vineyard does not belong to them. It was placed in their care, but they begin to behave as though they owned it. When the landowner sends his servants to collect the fruit, they beat and kill them. Finally, they even kill his son.
This parable does not concern only the people of the past. It speaks directly to us. God has entrusted a vineyard to each of us: our life, family, faith, time, health, work, talents, and the people he has placed beside us. They are gifts entrusted to our care so that they may bear fruit.
The question of the Gospel is very practical: what fruit does God find in my life? Not what good intentions I have, or what I promise to do one day, but what fruit is present now.
If God has entrusted a family to me, the fruit he expects is love put into practice: patience when I am tired, a kind word instead of a hurtful reply, time given to children, care for elderly parents, and the courage to say, “I am sorry.” It is not enough to say that we love our family; that love must be felt by those who live beside us.
If God has entrusted work to me, the fruit is honesty, responsibility and respect. It means doing my duty even when nobody is watching, not humiliating those who are weaker, refusing to spread gossip, and never building my success upon an injustice done to someone else.
If God has given me faith, its fruit cannot be only that I attend church on Sunday. The fruit of faith becomes visible on Monday morning, in the way I speak, forgive, choose, and treat people. A faith that changes nothing in my life risks becoming like a beautiful vineyard with no grapes.
There is also a more subtle temptation. Sometimes we want God’s gifts, but no longer want God himself. We ask him for health, protection and peace, but do not allow him to tell us how to live. It is as though we said, “Lord, thank you for the vineyard, but I will keep all its fruit for myself.” The parable reminds us that the Owner will ask what we have done with everything we received.