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Scripture readings for Sunday. Oct. 4,2026,\u00a0 Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/p>\n
Is 5:1-7\u00a0 Ps 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20\u00a0 Phil 4:6-9\u00a0 Mt 21:33-43<\/p>\n
Most people probably picture in their minds St. Francis with birds, preaching to them. Giotto\u2019s fresco is beautiful, rightly famous, and it captures something true about the saint\u2019s love for God\u2019s creatures, for he did indeed call all animals \u201cbrothers.\u201d And little creatures St. Francis loved most of all.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nYet I also picture St. Francis another way. I close my eyes and see him with a broom in his hand, walking into a church to clean it. I sometimes also imagine the parish priest, the look on his face as he wonders in astonishment what on earth this strange man is doing sweeping the floors, tidying up.<\/p>\n
Because he did that. Early in his ministry, as a brother penitent, St. Francis would go into churches and just start cleaning. He also repaired churches; he begged his old friends for stones so he could rebuild the walls of chapels. It was for the young saint a form of penance, repairing and cleaning churches.<\/p>\n
He did it simply because the Lord was there. He did it because Christ was present in his Church in his churches. In the Eucharist, on the altar, Jesus was present; and therefore, to St. Francis\u2019s plain way of thinking, the places where the Lord was present should be worthy of him.<\/p>\n
In his writings St. Francis repeatedly exhorted his brothers, priests too, to see that the churches in which Christ was present were \u201cbecoming.\u201d Walls, altars, linens, chalices: All should be beautiful and kept beautiful for the Lord. At least that\u2019s what St. Francis thought.<\/p>\n
[800 years after his death, St. Francis still teaches fearlessness in faith]<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s an aspect of St. Francis\u2019s life that comes to mind as I think on this Sunday\u2019s readings. St. Francis\u2019s feast day lands on Sunday this year, so I can\u2019t help but think of the humble saint of Assisi.<\/p>\n
In the first reading from Isaiah, Israel is figured as a vineyard. It\u2019s a traditional image which evokes God\u2019s election of Israel, that Israel is like a portion of land guarded and cultivated, meant to bear a bountiful crop. Behind this image is the whole story of salvation from Abraham to Moses and to David and the prophets.<\/p>\n
But something had gone terribly wrong, for the vineyard had yielded \u201cwild grapes,\u201d grapes not fit for the winepress. And so, what then is the point of the garden, maintaining its hedges and walls? What\u2019s the point of protecting it if it\u2019s just going to keep producing bad fruit? One might as well let it be trampled (Is 5:2-5). A pastoral image but frightening, this reading from Isaiah asks very hard moral questions about God\u2019s relationship with Israel.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s an image that Jesus takes and tweaks just enough to make it theologically urgent. Still the vineyard is Israel, the people of God by covenant; but here the people are figured as tenants tending the vineyard, and God is the landowner. But the tenants have taken to berating the landowner\u2019s servants until finally he sends his son.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will respect my son,\u201d the landowner thinks (Mt 21:37). But they don\u2019t respect him at all; they kill him. And then the parable ends with talk of \u201cwretched men\u201d and \u201cwretched death\u201d (Mt 21:41). This parable too is a pastoral image that has become frightening.<\/p>\n
These are stories about faith, recognizing Christ and moral responsibility. To enter God\u2019s covenant, to belong to God\u2019s people, is to accept the responsibility of living in the way of God, living in his justice. But to do that one must recognize God, see him and believe in him. Both the image of the vineyard in Isaiah and in the parable that Jesus tells in Matthew are about the sort of people the people of God should be by the time of the harvest, that they should be people of truth and justice, people who know and love God and their neighbor.<\/p>\n
Which is why I thought about St. Francis, not simply because his feast falls on Sunday. St. Francis took up repairing and cleaning churches because he knew who it was that was made present on the altars of churches. He also kissed lepers and the poor because he knew God mystically abided in those he embraced. Truth told him what his responsibility was. And that\u2019s what made him a saint, because he understood that, lived it.<\/p>\n
And so, I guess the question is this: How are you like St. Francis? How is your responsibility formed by your understanding of the truth? Are you a servant formed by faith? If you see Christ in faith, believe in him, then how has that faith changed your life? St. Francis changed the entire course of his life; he took up manual labor and walked away from the rich to become poor with the poor. All because he knew that such change was necessary if he truly wanted to become fruit ready for God\u2019s harvest. As we are all called to become.<\/p>\n
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of \u201cThe Crisis of Bad Preaching\u201d (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.<\/em><\/p>\n