LET IT BE

 

LET IT BE

Let’s borrow from The Beatles today. “Let It Be” was a song that took the whole world by storm in 1970, the banner song of an album of the same title that topped the charts back then. But most people wouldn’t remember that the album was published almost a month after the famous group broke up. It was almost as if Paul McCartney was saying to both himself and his bandmates, “So be it.”

The Gospel passage has something that sounds the same. The landowner who had a fig tree planted in his vineyard was looking for fruits. It was the time for reckoning. There is always a time for everything under the heavens, as Qoheleth says—a time to plant and a time to reap. It was time to get the pickings, but alas, there was none. Could it have been, then, the time to cut down?

“Hold it, sir,” said the vinedresser. He obviously still had a few tricks left in his bag. “Let it be ... for this year.” But his pleadings were accompanied by concrete doable pledges: “He would ‘dig around it and fertilize it,’” he assured the landowner.

God knows how many times I have muttered in exasperation and resignation the equivalent of “let it be.” It was not so much a prayer and patient pleading as a sign of desperation, a statement that seems to say, “That’s about it, folks! I could do no more.”

Today’s lesson is not only about patience, but more so about persevering prayer. It was a plea for the Master to postpone the decision to cut it down, but to be more tolerant and long suffering, understood as being merciful in the biblical sense. But it does not make sense to beg the Lord for mercy and yet do nothing from my end to make me worthy of what I plead for. We learn from this passage, too, that with a plea for patience comes a promise to do what we can do. “Let it be, Lord, but let me do what I can.” Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

---------- REFLECTION QUESTION ----------

How patient are you in waiting for God’s answers to your prayers? And how patient are you with other people’s shortcomings and weaknesses?

Jesus, just as You are patient with me, may I be patient with others too. Amen.
Today, I pray for: ____________________________