The vineyard was a pre-eminent metaphor for the people of Israel.
“My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside,” we read in today’s First Reading (Is 5:1).
Again, in today’s Responsorial Psalm, we sing: “You brought a vine out of Egypt. It stretched out its branches to the sea.” (Ps 79)
And our Gospel begins: “Listen, there was a landowner who planted a vineyard.” (Mt 21:33–43)
I had to catch myself when singing the Psalm. I almost sang, “You brought a vine out of Le Havre.”
Le Havre is a port city on the north-west coast of France. From this port, the French Marists set sail for the Pacific, including Aotearoa New Zealand.
These French missionaries brought with them generations of winemaking knowledge and a few treasured vines to Hawke’s Bay.
Mission Wines was born.
The Marist Fathers’ seminary is set among these vines.
Living amid the remains of these vines, and others that were meticulously researched and planted, is it any wonder I have learned a good deal about myself (and others!) from the vineyard, as the Israelites did of old?
The vine is a vigorous plant and needs severe pruning. It produces an abundance of leaves, but only some of its branches bear fruit.
The branches that produce only leaves must be cut back. Otherwise, they rob the others of their life-giving sap.
Leaves are the plant thinking of itself. Fruit is the plant thinking beyond itself, to the next generation.
The most vigorous, luxuriant part of myself may well be the part most in need of pruning.