The vineyard that yields sour grapes: Sunday readings for October 4

The vineyard that yields sour grapes and the Rosary prayed at 10 p.m.

The liturgy for Sunday, October 4 strings together three texts built around the same metaphor: the song of the vineyard from Isaiah 5, 1-7, Psalm 79 and the Gospel of Matthew 21, 33-43. A landowner tills the ground, clears it of stones, plants choice vines, builds a tower and digs a wine press. He expected grapes; he gathered sour ones. And the prophet's verdict leaves no room for doubt: the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel, and the cherished planting is the people of Judah, according to the responsory that opens the day.

What the Sunday readings for October 4 say

Isaiah places the vineyard on a fertile hill and lists the owner's labors. Then he announces the punishment: tear down the hedge so it can be burned, break down the wall so it can be trampled, let thorns and thistles grow, command the clouds not to rain on it. The complaint takes the form of an uncomfortable question: What more could I have done for my vineyard that I did not do?

The responsorial psalm insists on the image — the vine brought out of Egypt, its tendrils stretching to the sea — and asks God to return, to visit his vineyard, to tend the stock his right hand planted. The second reading, from Philippians 4, 6-9, shifts register: have no anxiety; in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

The Gospel is the harshest of the three. A landowner leases the vineyard, goes away, and sends servants to collect the fruit due to him. One is beaten, another killed, another stoned. He sends more servants and they are treated the same. Finally he sends his son, with the phrase that titles the passage: "They will respect my son." They throw him out of the vineyard and kill him. The response of the listeners — he will put those wretches to a perversos death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season — is closed out by Jesus with the stone rejected that ends up as the cornerstone.

The daily 10 p.m. Rosary and the promises attributed to it

On top of that liturgical calendar sits a daily prayer discipline: the Rosary at 10 p.m., a timed 25 to 30 minutes, using the version prayed since Lourdes in Spanish, with litanies, the Salve and a sung Hail Mary. Added to this are links to homilies — the comments of the Dominicans, the reflections of Father Pedro Brassesco or those of Father Santiago Martín — for those who prefer text over video.

To this devotion is attributed a list of promises tied to Marian apparitions: special protections and graces, its status as a weapon against hell, the destruction of vices, release from purgatory for those who pray it devoutly and, at the extreme, the guarantee of not dying without the sacraments. It is a catalog any spiritual director would read with a raised eyebrow: promising fruits is not the same as guaranteeing the harvest.

Saint Francis, a name chosen for business, and the sayings of the desert fathers

October 4 is also the antiestéticast of Saint Francis of Assisi, and from that comes the day's curiosity: at birth he was named Giovanni, and it was his father who began calling him Francesco — the Frenchman — because he did good business at the fairs of France. The saint of the day coexists with less popular material, such as the sayings of the monks compiled in the 17th century and translated from Greek for anyone who wants to read them on the page.

The point where everything stalls is the same as always. The landowner in the parable expected fruit and received violence against his messengers. The liturgical answer to that violence is not an argument but a repetition: pray, count the beads, start over each night at the same hour. Whether the vineyard yields grapes or sour ones remains, in the text, beyond the control of the one who waters it.