Blessed Virgin Mary 

St. John of Capistrano,priest 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊    

Romans 8:1-11

This contradiction no longer

Exists for those who are in Jesus Christ. For, in Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. The Law was without effect because flesh was not responding.

Then God, planning to destroy sin, sent his own Son, in the likeness of those subject to the sinful human condition; by doing this, he condemned the sin in this human condition. Since then the perfection intended by the Law would be fulfilled in those not walking in the way of the flesh, but in the way of the Spirit.

 Those walking according to the flesh tend towards what is flesh; those led by the spirit, to what is spirit. Flesh tends towards death, while spirit aims at life and peace. What the flesh seeks is against God: it does not agree, it cannot even submit to the law of God. So, those walking according to the flesh cannot please God.

 Yet your existence is not in the flesh, but in the spirit, because the Spirit of God is within you. If you did not have the Spirit of Christ, you would not belong to him. But Christ is within you; though the body is branded by death as a consequence of sin, the spirit is life and holiness.

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is within you, He who raised Jesus Christ from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. Yes, he will do it through his Spirit who dwells within you.

 

Ps 24:1b-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊     

Luke 13:1-9

 One day some persons told Jesus what had occurred in the Temple: Pilate had Galileans killed and their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.   Jesus replied, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Gali­leans because they suffered this?   I tell you: no. But unless you change your ways, you will all perish as they did.

 And those eighteen persons in Siloah who were crushed when the tower fell, do you think they were more guilty than all the others in Jeru­salem?   I tell you: no. But unless you change your ways, you will all perish as they did.”

 And Jesus continued with this story, “A man had a fig tree growing in his vine­yard and he came looking for fruit on it, but found none.  Then he said to the gar­de­n­er: ‘Look here, for three years now I have been looking for figs on this tree and I have found none.

Cut it down, why should it use up the ground?’   The gardener replied: ‘Leave it one more year, so that I may dig around it and add some ferti­lizer;   and perhaps it will bear fruit from now on. But if it doesn’t, you can cut it down.”

 

 Gospel Reflection：

In today’s gospel, Jesus uses two stories culled from everyday life. These are calls to repent, to change the direction of one’s life because they too could “likewise perish,” unexpectedly caught up in circumstances beyond their control and have their lives snuffed out in an instant.

That is why they have to be ready always. For bad things too could happen to good people. It is not always that they are punished for their transgressions. The natural law of the universe does not discriminate the good from the bad. Violence, accidents and the likes could happen to any

body regardless of their moral life. That’s sobering. We don’t like to think about it, and to be blunt, most of us don’t consider that life is really like this. But it is. There are no guarantees.

But independent of accidents that could victimize the good and the bad, there will be judgment in the end of time. The quality of our life determines what kind of sentence we will receive.

And so, if we are like the unproductive fig tree, we still have time to bear fruit. May we not waste this precious time for we know not when the judge will come.