Where Is the Fruit?

God plants the vineyard. He prepares the soil, chooses the vines, builds the hedge, digs the winepress, and constructs the tower. He provides everything necessary for a great harvest.

Then He entrusts it to tenants.

Jesus uses that image to tell the story of salvation. God sends the prophets, and they are rejected. Finally, He sends His Son. Jesus is taken outside the walls of Jerusalem and killed.

But then the vineyard is entrusted to new tenants.

That is where we enter the parable.

The Church has been entrusted to us. God has given us His Gospel, His Sacraments, our parishes, our schools, our resources, and one another.

The question is simple:

What fruit are we producing?

The mission of a parish cannot simply be to maintain what already exists. We have been entrusted with the vineyard so that it will produce fruit.

That means asking concrete questions. Who needs an invitation to Mass? Who needs to encounter the mercy of Confession? Who needs to learn to pray? Who needs Baptism? Who has fallen away and needs someone to invite them home?

There are about 200,000 people in the city of Mobile, and fewer than 6,000 will receive the Eucharist on an average Sunday. There is an enormous harvest before us.

Yet there is also tremendous reason for hope. At Saint Pius X, 23 people are currently on the roster preparing to enter the Church this Easter. People are still searching. People are still hungry for God, for community, for meaning, and for something greater than themselves.

We have been given the vineyard.

Now each morning we should be willing to ask:

“Father, what is it that you have for me to do today to build your Kingdom and produce your fruit?”