Third Sunday of Lent , Year C

Every day the press reports murders, accidents, front-page catastrophes. Jesus alludes to two public misfortunes from the news of his time. He does not refer to them in the manner of those retreat preachers who are only too happy to exploit a parish tragedy to urge people into the confessional. That is not Jesus' style. He does not consider violent deaths as divine punishments for sin. Rather, because he detects in his contemporaries a smug complacency, he warns them. They run the risk of being hardened to the urgency of conversion.

Even if each of us is like a tree which for many years has given ample proof of its sterility, God is like that patient farmer who gives his fig tree another chance. This opportunity lasts until the Lord's return. It is highlighted by this annual season of repentance.
Vienna International Religious Centre