How the Lord said to the Jews that the Church should pass to the Gentiles, and depicted this by the Parable of the Husbandmen in the Vineyard who killed the Son of their Lord
Our Lord and Redeemer, zealous for the salvation of souls, for whom He had come to lay down His life, sought by every means to draw them to Himself and to rescue them from the jaws of the enemy. Wherefore sometimes He used bland and lowly words, sometimes words of reproof and severity; sometimes examples and parables; sometimes threats and terrors : He varied his methods and remedies of salvation according to place, time, and audience. Thus, against the rulers and Pharisees He employed stem words, and a terrible example, though one just and true, that left them no escape. He proposes to them a parable of husbandmen in a vineyard, who killed the messengers of their Lord, who came to receive the fruits ; and afterwards they killed His Son. Then He asked, what punishment they deserved to receive from their master ? They replied, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out His vineyard to other husbandmen.” Jesus, approving their answer, thus applied it : “The kingdom of God, that is, the Church, shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof;” that is, to the Gentiles, of whom we are, and the universal Church. Moreover, He introduced the similitude of a corner-stone, which signified Himself, and which should grind the Jews to powder. And then they understood that the parable pointed to them, and the effect was, not their correction, but their increased anger, for their “malice had blinded them.” Behold, then, Christ, in this scene, humbly indeed sitting amongst these Pharisees, but speaking with authority and power, and in the power of His might telling them of their own fate.
Notes: S. Matt. xxi. 33-43.