The Gospel for memorial of St. Boniface, Bishop and Martyr is taken from Mark, 12th chapter, 1st to the 12th verse. Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes and the elders in parables. A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug out a winepress and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey at the proper time. He sent a servant to the tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.

But they seized him and beat him and sent him away empty handed. Again he sent them another servant, and that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully. He sent yet another one whom they killed. So too many others. Some they beat, others they killed. He had one other to send a beloved son.

He sent him to them last of all, thinking they will respect my son. But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. So they seized him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and put the tenants to death and give the vineyard to others.

Have you not read the Scripture passage? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the Lord, this has been done. And it is wonderful in our eyes. They were seeking to arrest him, but they fear the crowd. They realized that he had addressed the parable to them, so they left him and went away.

The teaching of Jesus was radically opposed to the way the temple operated, often with judgment and condemnation. And what Jesus does here is he doesn’t attack these men for not seeing. He gives them something to ponder, to wonder about. And they get it. And they weren’t attacked. They were simply enlightened.

That’s the way to work with those who need to see what they don’t see. Not to attack them, but to open their minds to a new way of seeing. And it calls upon that core in each one of us that knows the truth. We know who the cornerstone is. We know what life is really for deep inside of us. And Jesus would rather awaken that in us than condemn us.

And we’re asked to do the same. The closing prayer Father, when we’re with people who disagree with our basic core understanding of life, give us patience and a gentle heart so we can call them gently out of the darkness they’re caught in. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.