Lectio Divina — Leave
Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
October 24, 2026 | Weekly Theme: Belongs
1. Lectio — Leave It for This Year Also
“Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.”
Luke 13:8–9
There is something wonderfully paradoxical about a gardener who asks permission to leave a tree alone so that he may devote even more attention to it.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells of a fig tree that has failed to produce fruit. The owner has grown impatient. Three years of waiting have yielded nothing, and he orders the tree cut down.
But the gardener intervenes.
“Sir, leave it for this year also.”
The gardener does not deny the tree’s barrenness. He does not pretend that its failure to produce fruit is unimportant. Instead, he proposes a different response: more cultivation, more nourishment, more patience, and another opportunity.
I wonder whether I am the fig tree, the impatient owner, or the gardener.
Perhaps I have been all three.
There are times when I look at my own life and wonder why certain efforts have produced so little visible fruit. There are times when I look at the Church and become impatient with what appears to be an unwillingness to change. And there are times when I must remind myself that the work of cultivation belongs ultimately to God.
Yet the gardener’s request is not an invitation to neglect. Leaving the tree another year is not the same as abandoning it to its present condition.
The additional year is filled with work.
Perhaps this is the distinction Jesus wants me to recognize: I may be called to leave a situation in God’s hands without leaving behind my responsibility to love, cultivate, nourish, and hope.
And because I belong to Christ, I must trust that He knows better than I do when and how the fruit will appear.
2. Meditatio — What Will I Leave Behind?
Today, for a couple of reasons, I will not leave The Glenn to attend the formation and commissioning of lectors and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
The first reason is a joyful one.
Our grandchildren are here for a birthday celebration, just as I anticipated earlier this week when I discovered the pumpkins hidden beneath the frost-damaged vines in the Three Sisters Garden.
Those pumpkins, which I had not expected to find in such abundance, now belong to the children’s autumn memories. They will become Jack-o’-lanterns, roasted seeds, decorations, and eventually something good to eat.
For today, I am content to leave the work of carving and celebrating to their imaginations while I enjoy the privilege of being their grandfather.
But the second reason for remaining at The Glenn is considerably less joyful.
In 2019, Bishop Patrick Zurek issued a letter entitled “A Reflection on Christian Life.” As I understand the restrictions imposed upon me through that letter, I am no longer permitted to serve in Church ministry.
That exclusion continues to hurt.
Saint Paul tells me that Christ gives gifts to His people for the work of ministry and for building up the Body of Christ.
I have long believed that the gifts entrusted to me were meant to serve that very purpose.
Yet I have experienced the judgment of ecclesiastical authority as a declaration that my participation in ministry would be harmful rather than beneficial.
It is difficult to reconcile that experience with the invitation of the psalmist: “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.”
How do I go rejoicing when I feel that the gifts with which I hoped to serve have been judged unwelcome?
How do I continue to experience belonging when I am not permitted to participate in ministries that once gave expression to that belonging?
And how do I respond without allowing disappointment to become bitterness?
I understand that the purpose of ecclesiastical correction ought to include repentance and conversion.
The Lord Himself declares that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires that the sinner turn from evil and live.
But I have struggled to identify, from the letter as I understand it, the particular wrongdoing of which I am being asked to repent.
My own understanding is that I was attempting to fulfill a responsibility I had been encouraged to embrace: to keep speaking out about sexual abuse and failures of accountability within the Church.
I remember Bishop John Yanta encouraging me to “keep speaking out.” I understood that encouragement as consistent with the Church’s responsibility to protect the vulnerable and to confront wrongdoing.
Yet what I understood as service to the Body of Christ appears to have been interpreted differently by those exercising authority over my participation in ministry.
Perhaps there are aspects of my words, methods, or relationships that I have not adequately examined. I must remain open to that possibility.
But repentance requires some understanding of what needs to change.
And so I find myself standing, figuratively speaking, beside the barren fig tree.
Has the owner concluded that I should be cut off from ministry because I have failed to bear the fruit expected of me?
Or might the gardener still be asking for another year?
“Sir, leave it for this year also.”
Perhaps the most difficult part of today’s Gospel is accepting that the gardener does not promise immediate vindication.
He promises cultivation.
He promises patience.
He promises to work toward the possibility of fruit.
But he does not guarantee that the fruit will appear according to the timetable of either the owner or the tree.
That is a difficult lesson for me because I would very much like a resolution.
I would like to know whether the ministry I once exercised will ever again be welcomed. I would like to know whether my concerns about safeguarding and accountability will be understood as contributions to the Church rather than threats to her unity.
But today, surrounded by my grandchildren at The Glenn, another question begins to overshadow those desires.
What kind of world do I want to leave to those who come after me?
Pope Francis asks that very question in Laudato Si’.
He reminds me that the question cannot be confined to the environment alone. It concerns the general direction of human life, its meaning, and its values.
What kind of land will I leave to my grandchildren?
Will The Glenn be a place where they remember the wonder of pumpkins emerging from frost-damaged vines, sheep grazing beneath the autumn sky, and livestock guardian dogs watching over creatures entrusted to their care?
Will they remember that creation is not merely property to be consumed, but a gift that belongs ultimately to God?
And what kind of Church will I leave them?
Will they inherit a Church where the vulnerable are protected, where difficult questions may be asked, where conscience is formed rather than merely silenced, and where repentance is understood as a path toward renewed communion?
Will they discover a Church that knows how to correct wrongdoing without abandoning the person who needs correction?
Or will they inherit the divisions, resentments, and unresolved grievances that my generation has been unable to heal?
These questions belong together.
For the future of The Glenn and the future of the Church are both part of the world I am helping to leave behind.
Today I will leave the question of my return to ministry in God’s hands.
But leaving it to God does not mean surrendering my conscience, abandoning my concern for the vulnerable, or refusing the work of personal conversion.
It means continuing to cultivate what has been entrusted to me while allowing God to determine the harvest.
And perhaps the laughter of my grandchildren among the pumpkins will remind me that some of the most important fruit I am called to bear has nothing to do with an official ministry or a formal commissioning.
It has everything to do with love.
3. Oratio — Lord, Leave Me in Your Care
Lord Jesus Christ,
Today I hear the gardener pleading for another year, another season of cultivation, another opportunity for fruit.
I confess that I often grow impatient with the seasons of my own life.
I want answers where You offer patience. I want resolution where You offer cultivation. I want to see fruit where You ask me to trust the hidden work of grace.
Lord, You know the pain I carry concerning my exclusion from Church ministry.
You know my desire to serve, my questions about conscience, and my uncertainty about what repentance or reconciliation might require.
If there are faults within me that I have failed to recognize, reveal them with the clarity and mercy necessary for genuine conversion.
If there are misunderstandings that need to be addressed, open a path toward truthful dialogue.
If there are wounds that cannot yet be healed, protect me from allowing them to harden my heart.
Help me remember that my belonging to You does not depend entirely upon the ministries I am permitted to exercise.
My dignity comes from being created in Your image and called by Your grace.
Today I thank You for the grandchildren gathered at The Glenn.
May their laughter become a prayer of thanksgiving. May their celebration remind me of the goodness that remains even in seasons of disappointment.
Teach me to leave them more than possessions, memories, and stories.
Help me leave them an example of faithfulness, humility, courage, forgiveness, and love for Your creation.
And when I cannot see the fruit of my efforts, remind me that the gardener has not ceased working.
I leave my ministry, my conscience, my family, and my future in Your hands.
Amen.
4. Contemplatio — The Education We Leave Behind
Magnifica Humanitas, Chapter Four — Safeguarding Humanity at a Time of Transformation: Truth, Work, Freedom. Paragraph 144: The Central Role of Schools.
As I contemplate paragraph 144 of Magnifica Humanitas, I find myself returning to the question Pope Francis asks in Laudato Si’: What kind of world do I want to leave to those who come after me?
The paragraph addresses the inequalities that continue to prevent children and young people from receiving a quality education.
It reminds me that access to education should not depend solely upon the financial resources of a family or the circumstances into which a child happens to be born.
Governments have responsibilities. Educational institutions have responsibilities. Catholic schools, in particular, can make a valuable contribution when they extend opportunities to children whose families might otherwise be unable to afford them.
Education is not merely a commodity that belongs to those who can purchase it.
It serves the dignity of the human person and the common good.
Yet as I sit at The Glenn with my grandchildren, I realize that the educational inheritance I hope to leave them extends far beyond the classroom.
They are learning from everything around them.
They learn from the pumpkins that survive the first freeze, from the sheep that depend upon my care, from the dogs that protect the flock, and from the land that responds to the changing seasons.
They learn from the way I speak about the Church, the way I respond to disappointment, and the way I treat people with whom I disagree.
And perhaps they learn most from what I do when the world does not give me what I believe I deserve.
Do I become bitter?
Do I abandon the responsibilities entrusted to me?
Or do I continue cultivating the ground, trusting that the fruit of faithfulness may appear long after I am gone?
These questions bring me back to today’s Gospel.
The gardener does not ask that the barren fig tree be declared fruitful when it is not. He asks that it be given another opportunity to grow.
That distinction seems especially important when I consider the relationship between correction, formation, and exclusion within the Church.
Education requires patience because learning is rarely completed in a single lesson. Conversion requires patience because spiritual growth cannot always be measured by immediate results.
And genuine formation requires more than identifying failure. It requires helping a person understand what has gone wrong and what growth might look like.
I do not deny that the Church must sometimes restrict a person’s participation in ministry. Safeguarding, pastoral responsibility, and the common good may require difficult decisions.
But I also believe that such decisions should be accompanied, wherever appropriate, by clarity, fairness, opportunities for dialogue, and a genuine concern for the person’s spiritual welfare.
Otherwise, correction risks becoming indistinguishable from abandonment.
And abandonment is not what I encounter in the gardener of today’s parable.
He remains beside the tree.
He cultivates the soil.
He provides nourishment.
He hopes for fruit.
I wonder whether the same principles that make education accessible and fruitful might also illuminate the Church’s responsibility toward those who feel excluded from her ministries.
Does belonging to the Body of Christ mean that formation should remain possible even when participation in a particular ministry is restricted?
