March 17, 2017

St. Patrick

Mt 21: 33-43. 45-46

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.

Strength to Proceed

St. Patrick could have been considered one of those rejected cornerstones in today’s Gospel: a Scottish boy sold into slavery at 16, converted while a shepherd, who didn’t travel to bring Christianity to Ireland until he was 40 years old.

A boy praying and tending sheep in the fields, however, became one of the most well-known missionaries in western Europe.  As we are eating corned beef and wearing green today, we might also spend some time considering the ways we can take to heart St. Patrick’s words in his Confessio:

“One should proceed without holding back from danger to make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation, to spread God’s name everywhere with confidence and without fear.”

May our prayer this St. Patrick’s Day be for the strength to proceed—without holding back from danger— to make known the gift of God.

—Catherine Ruffing Drotleff serves as the Director of Development for the Ignatian Spirituality Project.

Prayer

Christ in me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind meChrist within me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

—from “The Breastplate of St. Patrick”