In the Gospel, Jesus speaks about a landowner who plants a vineyard and puts a hedge around it (Mt. 21:33).
When I was growing up, the border of our family home had a dense thicket of hedge over thirty feet long and eight feet high.
It was not unusual for a variety of weeds to spring up in the soil beneath the beautiful evergreen thicket. The evergreen’s gifts – its shelter and its breadth - brought some deficits. Weeds could grow unseen underneath it for a while. This undergrowth of vines, ivy, and weeds grew more rapidly than the trees themselves. Every season the weeds would grow up through the hedge, tightly intertwining with the trunks and choking the branches. The vines would even grow out through the top of the hedge and droop over. Not only was it unsightly, but worse, the weeds were choking the life out of the hedge. We had to go underneath the beauty, in between the gifts, to get to the roots of the things that, left unchecked, would overcome the beauty and choke it off.
Many people find that sin creeps into their lives in a similar way. We have gifts and strengths. But underneath these, - and in between them - patterns of sin and vice can take root and slowly tighten around us. We may "trim back" the behaviors from time to time. We may make resolutions, renew good intentions, or seek some assistance. Left unchecked, the roots of the weeds can eventually form an almost impenetrable layer that prevents any access to the rich soil below. The tangle of roots symbolizes what sin, vice, and their effects produce in our lives. But we have a sure way to clear out the roots themselves. His name is Jesus. And He goes with us underneath and in between, patiently and slowly, not out of shame or self-pre-occupation. And we slowly allow Jesus to root out what can choke off the life God intended.
God is like a gardener, who through the Holy Spirit works patiently in every inch of our soul and life to free us from sin, vice, and their effects. We, like the soil of a garden, can be docile before the Gardener who longs to bestow the seed of new life deep in our hearts and to water it with His grace so that we grow in virtue.
God bless,
Msgr. Brian Bransfield
Pastor
