When the Vineyard Becomes Difficult

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here is something striking about the servants in today's Gospel (Mt 21:33-43). They are sent into a vineyard that does not welcome them. They go because someone has sent them, even when being sent will cost them something.

And this is not only a story from the Gospel. Throughout the history of the Church, men and women have continued to enter difficult vineyards because they believed that God was sending them there.

During the Ignatian Year, I remember Fr Ramon Bautista SJ, sharing the story of one such Jesuit: Fr Walter Joseph Ciszek SJ (November 4, 1904—December 8, 1984).

Fr Ciszek felt called to serve as a priest in the Soviet Union at a time when openly practicing the faith could be dangerous. He entered Soviet territory hoping to minister to people deprived of priests. Instead, he was arrested, accused of being a Vatican spy, and imprisoned.

In a very real sense, Fr Ciszek became like one of those servants in the parable—sent into the vineyard, only to be seized and persecuted.

He would spend twenty-three years in the Soviet Union—five years in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison, followed by years of hard labor in Siberia and restricted life afterward. For a long time, his family and even his Jesuit brothers did not know whether he was still alive.

Among the many things taken away from him was something at the heart of his identity as a priest: the freedom to celebrate the Eucharist.

Imagine being a priest and being deprived, day after day, year after year, of the opportunity to celebrate Mass.

Then, amid the prison camps, an opportunity came.

Some Polish prisoners had stolen raisins and managed to make wine from them. Bread could somehow be obtained. It sounds almost insignificant: a few stolen raisins, a little bread. But for Fr Ciszek, these ordinary things meant that something extraordinary had suddenly become possible:

He could celebrate Mass again.

He later wrote in He Leadeth Me about the indescribable joy this brought him. The Eucharist gave him new strength. He could once again minister as a priest among what he called God’s “hidden flock”—men who, amid the harshness and isolation of imprisonment, sometimes thought themselves beyond the reach of God’s grace.

And perhaps this is where Fr Ciszek’s story helps us understand something deeper about today’s parable. The vineyard may have become a place of suffering. Nevertheless, it bore fruit.

Fr Ciszek could have looked at those twenty-three years simply as years stolen from his priesthood. He could have concluded: This is no longer the vineyard I expected. This is a wasteland. Nothing can grow here.

Instead, he discovered that even what seemed a wasteland, could become God's vineyard. There were still people who needed consolation, forgiveness, hope, and the Eucharist. Even there, God could bear fruit through Fr Ciszek's life.

Perhaps this is the question the Gospel leaves with us: When the vineyard becomes difficult, do we stop seeing it as God’s vineyard?

But the Gospel takes us one step further. After all the servants had been rejected, the landowner did something astonishing: he sent his own son. “They will respect my son,” he said.

And they killed him too.

This is the ultimate manifestation of God’s love for the vineyard. God does not love from a safe distance. He gives his Son. Jesus himself enters the vineyard, allows himself to be rejected and killed, and through that very self-giving brings forth the greatest fruit.

Perhaps this is why we can continue to enter difficult vineyards. We are not being sent anywhere that Christ himself has refused to go before us.

Sometimes the vineyard God gives us is not the vineyard we would have chosen. Sometimes it is difficult, unwelcoming, even dangerous. But the Son has already entered it. And so faithfulness means trusting that even here, God is still sending me; even here, God is still loving; even here, seeds can grow and one day can bear fruit.

Let us pray:

Lord, you loved your vineyard so much that you sent your own Son. Wherever you send us, give us the courage to remain faithful, to love without giving up, and to bear fruit for your Kingdom. Amen. Fr JM Manzano SJ