Hearing The Word

A weekly newsletter delivering context and insight into the Sunday Gospels.

October 4, 2026

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 21:33-43

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

"Hear another parable.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,

put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. 

Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.

When vintage time drew near,

he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. 

But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat,

another they killed, and a third they stoned. 

Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones,

but they treated them in the same way. 

Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking,

'They will respect my son.'

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another,

'This is the heir.

Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.'

They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 

What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"

They answered him,

"He will put those wretched men to a wretched death

and lease his vineyard to other tenants

who will give him the produce at the proper times." 

Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

by the Lord has this been done,

and it is wonderful in our eyes?

Therefore, I say to you,

the kingdom of God will be taken away from you

and given to a people that will produce its fruit."



Fruit of the Vineyard



~Rev. Irenaeus Dunlevy, O.P.

Dean of the College Propaedeutic Year at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary + Ambler, PA.

If there is one thing we should be mindful of in this Gospel, it’s that Jesus cares a lot about fruit. Just a few verses earlier in Matthew, Christ curses a fig tree for the crime of not yielding fruit. Today, his dispute with the chief priest and elders leads to him speaking about a homeowner requesting fruit. Within the parable, the homeowner leases his vineyard to tenants, and he desires his fruit, sending messengers and eventually his son. Despite repeated attempts, he is denied.

The parable is an allegory: the homeowner is God, the servants are the Old Testament prophets, and the Son is Jesus Christ himself, who will similarly be taken outside of the vineyard, that is Jerusalem, and killed. The wicked tenants are the chief priests and elders standing before Christ.

The fruit that Jesus desires is not exactly grapes or figs but charity. It’s fitting that God, the homeowner, would desire this fruit, which is his, for charity is a gift by which we love God with his very own love.

One last curious detail remains for us to explore: Jesus tells the parable at a time when it is not yet fulfilled. He is alive, not cast out, not killed as he stands before those who will condemn him. He is prophesying, and as the Church Father Origen states, the chief priests prophesy in a manner like Caiaphas. They mention that the vineyard will be given to tenants who will give fruit at the proper time. The fulfillment of both of these prophecies leads us to the Crucifixion.

Christ upon the Cross, transforms it into a tree of life that never withers. Upon that living tree, he pours himself out as though in a winepress. Although he is put to death, he gives life. Though those he visits produce no fruit, he brings forth the greatest harvest of charity. Those that feed upon it become the new tenants, those who produce works of charity in the Kingdom of God.

Saint Francis of Assisi - The Good Tenant

~Gia Myers

Immaculate Conception BVM Church + Douglasville, PA



The wicked tenants in today’s parable treat what was leased to them as if it belonged to them all along. The vineyard represents many things: creation, the Church, our own lives and our gifts. But none of it belongs to us. It is all lent, and we are always only tenants.

The Lord’s warning is very clear. He calls us to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God, or it shall be taken from us, same as the tenants of the vineyard.

This Sunday is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi during his Jubilee Year (January 10, 2026 to January 10, 2027). He is the tenant who got it right.

Many people think of St. Francis as simply the saint who liked animals. But after reading the saint’s biography by Danish writer Johannes Jørgensen earlier this year, I learned that St. Francis was so much more than the inspiration behind many parishes’ annual blessing of the animals.

Francis responded to this call with radical conversion, humility, and joyful obedience to the Gospel. He lived in a state of constant prayer, which became an ongoing conversation with God. Though he was the son of a wealthy merchant, he came to freely embrace poverty and shape himself into a living image of Christ.

Where the wicked tenants hoarded, Francis gave everything he could: his clothes, his comfort, his inheritance. And in return, he received the very wounds of Jesus, the Son who was thrown out of the vineyard.

St. Francis bore fruit through letting the light of Christ shine through him. On Sunday’s feast of St. Francis, at the heart of his Jubilee, the Church places this parable before us as both a warning and an invitation. How will we respond?