23 March 2025 - tower defense

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?
By no means!

It has become abundantly clear that it is not the guilty who suffer in this world nearly so much as the innocent. It is more often the contrary, where it is the guilty who seem to reap the rewards while the innocent pay the price. Yet, knowing this, even we have a hard time thinking of victims of tragedy as anything other than cursed. Even at best, we think of them as lacking blessings others received. Jesus explained clearly that difficult situations were not necessarily punishment for sin. The fact that accidents happened and tyrants perpetrated violence was not proof that God desired such things. Since "God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living" (see Wisdom 1:13).

But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!

Tragedies can remind us to number our days and teach us the shortness of life. They demonstrate that we don't know when our lives will be demanded of us. If we put off repentance to some future date it may will be the case that we don't live long enough to do it. In such a case our death would take us by surprise, as it no doubt did those on whom the tower at Siloam fell. But even if our sin did not directly bring death upon us a lack of repentance could result in eternal death, the death of the soul. Repentance is no guarantee of a happy life. But it can guarantee something better: a blessed death.

For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree
but have found none.

In his mercy the Lord pleads for more time for those of us who have not born fruit and have exhausted the soil. He did not come immediately with an axe to cut us down. But it is inevitable that fruit will be required of us eventually. It is upon this that we will be judged at the hour of our death. It is a mystery how the time allotted to each one is decided in the wisdom and providence of God. But it seems certain that each one is given enough time to align his life with the purpose of God. When we are spared from hardship and tragedy it is precisely with a greater spirit of repentance and a greater motivation to bear fruit that we ought to use the extra time we have been given. A near brush with the axe is no reason to despair. It is a reason to watch even more closely for the gardener who delights to care for even the trees that have been barren thus far. Then we can put the nutrients which he infuses in us to good use and stretch out our roots into the good soil he himself creates around us.

   

 Maranatha! Music - Change My Heart Oh God