Are we bearing good fruit in our lives?
Fr. Steve encourages us to read scripture daily.
In baptism we connect ourselves to the life of God, but do we then abide in that life? In the Gospel today Jesus asks us to remain in him. Fr. Steve refers to the “sculpting” of the trinity performed for us by the John Paul II Center team, along with Fr. Steve, during the Healing the Whole Person Retreat, in September 2017. A participant in that retreat modeled how the trinity enfolds the person and includes them in their embrace of love, in their unity. When we stray outside of that embrace and begin to rely on ourselves, we begin to die. We are not protected when we are on our own and neither do we bear much fruit. If we don’t bear fruit, God will cut us off. That is true, but he can’t wait to graft us back into the vine!
If we live our lives abiding in him we will bear fruit. Let’s live the faith. Jesus says we will do even greater things than Jesus if we abide in him.The Lord’s call is to abide in him, remain in him, live in him. Part of that is knowing his language of love as explained in the scriptures. We need to read the scriptures daily and absorb the Spirit at work in the life of faith. The more we read scriptures the more we can allow the Lord to prune off the parts of ourselves that are diseased. Ask the Lord: what do you want to prune in my life? The evidence that we are disciples is not going to Mass but produce good fruit. We should ask the Lord how we are trying to live independent of him, and ask him to change us, to mold us, to graft us to his vine so that we can remain in him.
