Reflection on Lk 13:5
“I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will
all likewise perish.”
Before Jesus spoke these words, He said: “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?” Saying this, He responded to the report about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and He emphasized: “I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” And He added: “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem?” (v.1-4) And He said again: “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” These words apply to each of us.
Repentance is not a one-time thing. Perhaps it can be true of conversion, when you become open to God’s grace, and turn from the spirit of the world to God. But then the world keeps pulling you down and forcing you to submit to its system again. That is, to prioritize material and external things and not care about your soul and its salvation. That is why we need to repent again and again. It is like working in a dirty environment. We need to wash our hands often, because otherwise the dirt can become a source of infection. To repent basically means to change our way of thinking. The spirit of the world shapes our mind to focus on things that pass away and are impermanent. It does not truly highlight the essence, and even replaces it with irrelevant things. Pursuing an apparent good or an apparent truth, it leads away from God’s truth and from the highest good, which is the salvation of our immortal soul. Therefore, remembering God’s Word, knowing it and rooting ourselves in it and its sound principles is the best defence against the spirit of lies and death that works through the system of this world. We need to change our thoughts from lies to truth, from false good to true good.
Nowadays, the mainstream media influences people’s thinking through various methods such as the Overton Window and others. This is particularly evident in gender propaganda, which suggestively imposes gender reassignment, i.e. lifelong mutilation, even on children. These drastic crimes against humanity are now considered almost normal! That’s how brainwashing works through mass media and the spirit of the world! They pass off crime as prestige, and instead consider what is natural and good as crime. Germany has recently passed a law that if a child over five consents to sex reassignment surgery, he or she has the right to it. If parents prevent the child from undergoing the procedure, they can be imprisoned for up to seven years!
A catastrophic change in thinking has taken place within the Catholic Church as well. The invalid Pope Francis and his followers have introduced the blessing of the outrageous sin of sodomy! This rebellion against God is promoted through concessions, silence and collaboration of bishops and priests. Every priest, whether he likes it or not, will eventually be forced to bless sin and betray Christ. All of this happens slowly, inconspicuously, with occasional resistance appearing, but gradually fading away until it finally dies out. This is the fruit of openness to the spirit of the world. Recall that the Belgian Church has even instituted a liturgical rite to bless queer couples. This includes marrying a man to a pig or a goat or a dog, etc. It is both a loss of conscience and a loss of reason; people are becoming idiots because they have confused common sense with irreality. Here we see the need for repentance, not just for Christians, but for every human being, if they want to be human at all. But we Christians know that it is not enough just to have our mind transformed into a so-called sound mind, but we must have it conformed to the Gospel, that is, to God’s laws, which are the guarantee of peace of soul, harmony of life, and eternal life after death. Without repentance we will lose eternal life.
Jesus concludes this exhortation with the parable of the barren fig tree: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’” (v.6-9)
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