Commentary on the Gospel of
Yesterday`s Gospel was an invitation to learn to scrutinize the signs. And today, we can see how Jesus does it in two different events. He also gave a lesson to his followers.
Jesus does not approve nor condemn Pontius Pilate's behaviour; he does not admit that the Siloah Tower crash was God`s punishment because of the sins of those persons. Jesus is reminding us that all bad things that happen in our lives are not God´s punishment. He gets a lesson from those situations: we are very fragile and we need conversion. Jesus once again, is trying to disassemble the idea of God`s punishment. As we can see in the whole Gospel, Jesus tells us that God is a loving father.
In the parable of the fruit-less tree he also points out another attitude we should have: a vigilant attitude. This attitude has a very close relationship to the need for conversion. If we are not awake it is easy for us accept and approve thoughts, actions and words that are not in accordance with the Gospel. It could happen little by little and we do not realize that we are distancing our self from the Gospel.
We can go deeper into this parable. We can ask our self: are we given the fruits that God is expecting from us? And going further: are we like the gardener that intercedes in favour of the tree? We can remember Father Claret's word that can help us synthesize these two attitudes from the Gospel: “I will have for God, the heart of a son and a wife; for myself, the heart of a judge; and for my neighbour, the heart of a mother” (Autobiography 248). Let us pray to the Lord to help us to internalize these attitudes.
