The Christ Light
27th Sunday of the Ordinary Time – The Christ Light
Of all the images that will endure of Pope Leo’s 4-day trip to France last week, one captures everything about his pontificate as well as our Catholic faith: that of Marie Garance. In the photo, young Marie is being lifted-up toward the Pope-mobile, where Leo has been blessing babies and small children along the parade route. What makes Marie stand-out more so than all the others, perhaps, is the very fact that she’ll never cognitively know this side of heaven just how special that moment was for her family, the people of France, and for all of us.
According to Marie’s adopted Mom, Clotilde Noel, her daughter has a variety of severe disabilities, including lack of mobility and an inability to talk and swallow. She requires 24-hours care, and doctors don’t quite know how long Marie has left in this world. She almost never had an opportunity to experience it all, except for one brave mother who chose adoption over abortion, and another brave mother willing to take Marie into her home and heart.
Admittedly, Marie’s young life is truly a cross, one that is heavy to carry, and one that makes many others turn-away. “It’s tragic that she wasn’t put out of her suffering,” say many, often out of misplaced compassion. But that is not how Clotilde sees it; to her, Marie is the cornerstone of her family. By her very life, she has taught her parents and siblings how to love genuinely and sacrificially, and her pure light has been a light for which others find the way to God.
The stone rejected has become the cornerstone. Therein lies the answer to all of this – how to live; how to love; how to spend eternity with God. It’s all about refusing to reject the cornerstone.
Matthew’s account of the Workers in the Vineyard is on one level the story Jesus uses to call-out the religious leaders of his day – the supposed pious ones and shepherds of the people – who refused to accept the prophets who paved the way for the Messiah, and then literally killed the Savior when he did come. The One they were waiting for throughout generations and centuries was silenced by crucifixion because they were troubled by his radical teachings that seemed to oppose how they interpreted the Law. These shepherds wanted their vineyard to look like they imagined it, not how this Jesus was shaping it to be.
And because he upset the status-quo, to Calvary he went. The cornerstone was rejected.
It is interesting, though, to recognize the truth that Jesus is revealing in his parable. He makes one thing abundantly clear: the rejecters will – because of their hardened and selfish hearts – become the rejected ones. Because they chose death over life and selfishness over self-sacrifice, they will lose their way both now and for eternity. God never forces us to love and accept Him.
This did, in fact, come to pass. Within a generation after Calvary, the very Pharisees and religious leaders of the people had their Temple destroyed by invaders, and the House of Israel no longer stood as it once had. Their power was gone; the people scattered; the faith as they knew it in shambles. The rejecters became the ones rejected, and the fruit of the vineyard was offered to others.
Thus, all was not lost. Not everyone ignored the true Cornerstone. Rather, they accepted Him and His Cross and let His Light transform them. They didn’t shrink from the journey and did not demand that the Son acquiesce to their own desires, whims and selfish needs. They lived in the vineyard as He intended, and from there a beautiful harvest came about.
That call then – to accept the True Cornerstone and all He demands of us – is the same call now: to cling to the rejected stone.
How do we do that? What does that really mean for us as disciples of Jesus Christ?
Paul guides us in his letter to the Philippians. Do you want God at the center of your life? We have to make prayer a priority. Prayer is hard; it can become dry. We’d rather sleep-in or fill our time with other things. But we mustn’t. When we do, the cornerstone starts to get replaced and the vineyard overgrown.
Secondly, we must live lives of thankfulness. Not just for the happy moments and the prayers that are answered positively, but also for the ones that seem as though they were ignored and given a “no.” We become Light-bearers when we can authentically offer to God the following prayer when Calvary looms large in our lives: “Lord, I do not understand, but I trust You. I thank You for carrying this Cross with me and for me. Your will is perfect, and I will follow with a grateful heart.”
Yes, that is a hard one to pray. It seems foolish, actually. But it also the prayer that Mrs. Noel prays every day as she cares for the needs of her daughter Marie and the other children for whom she pours-out her life and heart. Holding onto a grateful heart, especially when the Son’s inheritance to us is a share in His suffering.
But when we are willing to live in that vineyard, here is the final piece that Paul offers to us: if we strive to live a life focused on all that is true, honorable, just, pure and lovely, then we will become vineyard workers whose hearts don’t reject the ones who are seeking healing, mercy and love. We live and become the Christ-light in His vineyard, and we come to see the vineyard as God desires it.
I once believe that the Vineyard – the Church – was best when she was powerful, telling world leaders they were wrong; influencing Hollywood and Wall Street; building schools and institutions in every city. People would look to this Vineyard for their every need, and no one would disobey or turn away.
And while many of these things are good and noble desires for our Church in the modern world, I now have a somewhat different understanding of how the Kingdom of God should look. It isn’t filled with leaders wearing fine purple linens and Catholic social media influencers with perfect teeth and hair (although they are most welcome). It isn’t fronted by the powerful and wealthy, nor is it tended to only by educated men with law degrees and language capabilities.
Rather, as I now envision it – the Kingdom that the Phariseesdidn’t want to be a part of is teeming with the rejected ones: the disabled and the different; the drug-and-alcohol addict crying out for sobriety; the LGBTQ kid wanting to be loved while doing his best to live chastely; the heartbroken and the ones always teetering on the edge of life.
This Vineyard should be filled with beautiful lights like Marie Garance, who remind us that all life is sacred, no exceptions. None. And this Vineyard-Kingdom celebrates moments when such a Christ-Light is made visible for all to see, even if but for a moment on a boulevard in Paris on a late-September afternoon. A beautiful girl with a heavy cross lifted gentlyabove the heads of the crowd by the crowd themselves in order to be blessed by the visible shepherd upon whom Christ’s Church finds her way to Eternal Life. That’s the Vineyard we should all want to live in.