DAY 17: 40 Days for Life: QUOTE: Dear all, Today we pray that the Lord of Light and Life may unite us, shine in us and through us to make a difference in the darkness. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. (Ephesians 5:8-11) Todays meditation insists on what the world would call productivity or achievement: this passage of Scripture is all about bearing fruit. This is what the Lord expects of us. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit: fruit that will last. (John 15:16) To bear fruit is not the icing on the cake, but it is our very mission. Mediocrity is just not acceptable. Christ is not interested in our merely trying. He gave us three imperatives: 1) to go; 2) to bear fruit; 3) to bear fruit that will last. It will require a lot of perseverance and hard work: fruit that lasts does not grow overnight. Our Lord expects us to succeed, not merely to try. It is true that Mother Theresa once said that we were not called to be successful, but we were called to be faithful. Our Lord is not expecting us to do this on our own. The effort we have to put in is to be faithful, it is to persevere. He seems to regard, however, our fruitfulness as a measure of our faithfulness. The good servants of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) who gained as many talents as they were given are praised for their faithfulness. The good soil where the seeds brought forth fruit, a hundredfold, or sixtyfold or thirtyfold, in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9) is those who hear the Word and understand it (verse 23), that it to say, not just understand what the Word means, but also what it implies and requires. Blessed John Paul drives this point home in his homily on the eight World Youth Day in Denver in 1993. “There are those who reject the light of life, preferring the fruitless works of darkness (Eph 5,11). Their harvest is injustice, discrimination, exploitation, deceit, violence. In every age, a measure of their apparent success is the death of the Innocents. In our own century, as at no other time in history, the culture of death has assumed a social and institutional form of legality to justify the most horrible crimes against humanity: genocide, final solutions, ethnic cleansings, and the massive taking of lives of human beings even before they are born, or before they reach the natural point of death. And in case we would be a bit thick, he adds: At this stage of history, the liberating message of the Gospel of Life has been put into your hands. And the mission of proclaiming it to the ends of the earth is now passing to your generation. Like the great Apostle Paul, you too must feel the full urgency of the task: Woe to me if I do not evangelize (1Cor 9,16). Woe to you if you do not succeed in defending life. The Church needs your energies, your enthusiasm, your youthful ideals, in order to make the Gospel of Life penetrate the fabric of society, transforming people’s hearts and the structures of society in order to create a civilization of true justice and love. Now more than ever, in a world that is often without light and without the courage of noble ideals, people need the fresh, vital spirituality of the Gospel. Our good Lord has given us the tip to be successful: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” (John 15:1-4) Let us therefore follow St Pauls exhortation to walk as children of light, having no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. You will probably not hear from me over the next two weeks, as Im going away, and Im not sure I will have access to a computer. I would like to remind you of tomorrows March for Life and next Tuesdays pro-life Pilgrimage to Walsingham. God bless, Choose life, that you and your descendants may live (…) For that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. (Dt 30:19-20) END QUOTE
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 08:44:01 +0000
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