Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press 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.”

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.

Today is Respect Life Sunday, and we pray for the renewal in our world of respect for all human life. On this day, too, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who died 800 years ago yesterday, October 3. It is also the last day of the ecumenical Season of Creation, of which St. Francis is the patron, which began on September 1. With all of these, we pray for a renewal in our world, too, of respect for all creation, every creature, and our common home, this planet earth we share and its resources.

The first chapter of Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, is entitled “The Mystery of the Church” and recalls some of the biblical images of the Church.

One of these images is of the Church as the vineyard of God: “The Church is a piece of land to be cultivated, the tillage of God (l Cor. 3:9). That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly Husbandman (Mt. 21:33-43; Is. 5:1 ff). The true vine is Christ who gives life and the power to bear abundant fruit to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ without whom we can do nothing (Jn. 15:1-5).” The Matthew and Isaiah passages are part of today’s Gospel and First Reading.

—Father Bob Hagan, SJ, is a member of a community of senior Jesuits at Saint Ignatius Hall in Florissant, Missouri. He does limited spiritual direction, mostly online; gives sacramental care to the lay Catholics in the adjacent retirement community; writes occasional reflections for Jesuit Prayer; posts various daily items and a longer weekly reflection on the Sunday Mass readings on his Facebook site at Bob Hagan SJ; and drives fellow Jesuits who no longer drive wherever they want to go.

God of love, show us our place in this world as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth, for not one of them is forgotten in your sight. Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live. The poor and the earth are crying out. O Lord, seize us with your power and light, help us to protect all life, to prepare for a better future, for the coming of your Kingdom of justice, peace, love and beauty. Praise be to you! Amen.

—Taken from “A Christian Prayer in Union with Creation” at the end of the encyclical Laudato si’ on Care for Our Common Home of Pope Francis