Gospel Commentary for Saturday, October 25, 2025

Conversion and Life in the Spirit

Jesus refers to two events of His time that had apparently shaken the people of Jerusalem—and perhaps all of Israel. The first, caused by human cruelty, was an atrocious act by Pilate against some Galileans, likely accused of rebellion. The second was an accident—the collapse of a tower—that killed eighteen people.

Using these events, Jesus challenges a common way of understanding God’s action in the world, one shared by His contemporaries and, quite possibly, still by some of His disciples today. Many saw God as an avenger of sins, believing that misfortunes—large or small, natural or human-made—were punishments sent by Him when deserved. Yet it seems paradoxical that the cruel hands of criminals or the blind forces of nature could serve as instruments of God’s wise and merciful justice, especially when the “punished” are usually ordinary people—no more guilty or innocent than anyone else—while the true wrongdoers (like Pilate in this case) go unpunished.

Jesus rejects this distorted image of God and helps us to purify it, clarifying the true relationship between sin and punishment. He reminds us that God does not punish, use violence, or send disasters—natural or historical—to warn us. Such an idea would mean that God warns some at the expense of others’ lives. Instead, Jesus teaches that salvation (or destruction) does not come from outside; it does not depend on external events, whether good or bad, as if God used them to bless or punish us. Salvation and condemnation arise from within us—from our capacity for conversion.

When Jesus says, “Do you think those who died were greater sinners than others? I tell you, no; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did,” He means exactly this. Those who perished were not punished for specific sins—but if we, who perhaps feel safe, do not turn away from our own sins and convert our hearts, we bring ruin upon ourselves. It is not God who punishes; rather, we punish ourselves when we turn away from the source of Goodness and Being.

Through the parable of the barren fig tree, Jesus reinforces His call to conversion. A life apart from God is like a fig tree that bears no fruit—useless, destined for destruction. This is not an arbitrary or external decree; it is a matter of remaining faithful—or not—to one’s deepest truth. Still, what sounds at first like a threat ends as a parable of God’s mercy. God listens to the plea of the gardener—Christ Himself—who promises to work the soil and fertilize it with His Word, giving the tree one more chance to change and bear fruit.

In Christ, God has done His part. Now it is up to us to do ours, as Paul reminds us: to make a choice sustained by grace—to live according to the Spirit, which necessarily involves renouncing life according to the flesh.

Fraternal greetings,