Monday, March 4, 2013

Is. 55:1-9; Ps.63:1-8; 1 Cor. 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

 Luke 13:8 “Let the fig tree alone for one more year.”

            In truth, every normal human being wants to be of value, wants to offer something of value to the world, either through career or family or volunteering or art or through myriad quiet and invisible ways. Children rise to the task when presented with responsibility. Adults can be energized by a challenging task. God is always offering us second chances, third chances, fourth, fifth and sixth chances, to bear fruit for the life of the world. Every act of love increases God’s sway in the world. God is ever granting us another chance. Now it is up to us to greet opportunity and risk being loving and compassionate and trusting and…hardest of all: vulnerable.

             "Let us therefore bear fruit as we should! Let our fate be not that of the barren fig tree;… As then it is God's part to plant and to water, so it is yours to bear fruit; it is God's to grant grace, but yours to receive and guard it. "

(Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, I,4)

O God, fountain of life, may we set aside all that prevents us from bearing fruit in our lives – the fruit of new life from your living water. Amen

• Write in your journal about the type of fruit God might desire you to bear. Eat a fruit with many seeds.