Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 27, 2022: A good tree does not bear rotten fruit...

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit…

What kind of fruit do you bear?

    You can tell a great deal about a person by his speech, as Sirach knew: The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind. To speak is to reveal a great deal about oneself, which is a good reason to pause before saying just about anything. Our goal, of course, is to bear good fruit: The just one shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow, Psalm 92 reminds us. A good life is rooted where the Lord speaks to us, where we are open to the Lord and to his presence in our life, that we might allow him to work in us and through us. But all too often, our faults appear when we speak. 

   Jesus was certainly aware of this. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus recommends removing the wooden beam from our own eye before offering to remove the splinter in our brother’s eye. A lack of clarity in our vision often causes to speak of the faults of others without recognizing our own brokenness. Moreover, what is stored in the heart is revealed when we speak: every tree is known by its own fruit, Jesus says, and from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. What do you store up in your heart? Is it a list of every hurt, every offense committed against you? Or do you store up every good act, every kindness paid to you? If kindness is your go-to, then kindness will be the fruit of the Spirit manifested through your own speech. 

    As Paul reminds the Corinthians, Jesus’ death and resurrection opens the capacity for us to be changed by being drawn more profoundly into the love of God. If we cling to the natural world – that which is corruptible, in Paul’s terms – we cannot envision life after death, for our understanding of our existence is limited. But if we live lives informed by the incorruptible Spirit, then we know that God gives us the victory over death through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we see his Spirit at work in our lives, we will be all the more ready to surrender our existence to him, a surrender whose fruits will be those of the Spirit, grounded in kindness and faithfulness, that we might be ever ready to give thanks to the Lord. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 

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