He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade. // Psalm 1:3
Zipping up my jacket, I step out the back door in my gardening shoes. I have my kitchen shears in one hand and a large bowl in another. It is late October in Minnesota and the first frost will be here soon. The tops of our carrots jut out of the ground—I pull them one by one by the base of their leafy greens. We love carrot cake made from our fresh garden carrots. My husband is picking the remnants of the green cherry tomatoes. If we have time, we will pickle them in jars. Our garden is finished yielding its fruit this year—that which it offers us in due season if we take the time to plant, weed, and water. Yet sometimes the work of the harvest is the hardest part of bearing the fruits.
Saint Paul in the First Reading contrasts the “works of the flesh” with the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18-25). At our Baptisms we were planted near the running water of the Spirit, but we have to intentionally sink our roots into the river bed and drink. It takes regular weeding to clear away the works of the flesh in our own lives so that we can bear the fruit of the Spirit. We must “crucify our flesh,” or to use the gardening analogy, let ourselves be pruned in our sufferings. These sufferings may be great or small, voluntary mortifications or trials offered to us by life.
Sometimes as we tend to our spiritual lives, we strive so hard to follow the law, that we lose the fruit of living in the Spirit. We get so focused on the tending, like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel (see Luke 11:42-46), that we let the most precious fruits of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” slip through our fingers.
Sister, what are the fruits you want to see in your life? Are your roots reaching towards the Spirit? Where do you need to let the Lord in to tend the garden of your heart? Ask Him to help you experience the fruits of your life in Him.
Susanna Spencer holds a master's in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is the Content and Theological Editor for Blessed is She. She is a freelance writer, editor, and speaker living with her philosopher husband and four kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She loves reading theology, attending beautiful liturgies, cooking delicious food, and casually following baseball. She is the author of the Gospel Studies including Seek His Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew; narrator for Found: Advent With the Good Shepherd and Rescued: Lent With the Lamb of God; a contributing author to our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up; and Theological Editor of the Blessed Conversations Studies. Find out more about her here.
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