Bearing Good Fruit
Posted on: February 25, 2013
We want to bear good fruit for God
Each spring and fall, I wait for my bulb catalogue to come in the mail so I can drool…I mean, look over the latest offerings of lilies, irises, tulips and more.
I circle pictures of the plants that catch my eye and go through the catalogue again and again till I whittle down my choices. Then I eagerly await the arrival of my order.
At planting time, I hate getting my fingernails dirty, which gardening gloves are powerless to prevent. But when the flowers begin to poke their way through the soil and finally blossom in a wide array of colours, shapes and scents, I know that all the digging, mulching and seemingly endless weeding are worth it.
For over a decade, I’ve been an avid gardener. But I’m really just the gardener’s apprentice; God is the master gardener.
Yet God cultivates so much more than flowers. He also plants us in a particular family, in a specific place and time:
(M)y frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:15-16*)
God wants us to grow in faith and use the gifts he’s given us:
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15:5-6)
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:16)
And he tells us about the need for workers to bring in the harvest of souls:
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37)
If want to bear good fruit for God, we need to pray for guidance in developing and using our talents wisely and in letting go of the things that keep us from bearing fruit. And not just for ourselves, but also for our families. We also need to pray for more vocations so the Church will have more workers: deacons, priests, religious and, of course, a new pope.
(Quotes from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition)
A Catholic Convert in Ottawa 