By Fr. Antony Christy, SDB –
8th Sunday in Ordinary time
Ecclesiasticus 27: 5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6: 39-45
Fruits – it is by fruits that a tree is known! What we are is judged by our fruits but beware what you put out as your fruits!
Today when we look around people are looking for fruits, and persons look to prove themselves to others showing off their fruits. Not just the advertisements or the publicities that are made, which are almost totally fake, but there are other modes in which even individuals and groups wish to show themselves off to others, as something that they are not, to gain, or to be popular or to have their way!
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter handles are filled with photoshopped facts and filtered snaps, all to impress others and make oneself desired at all costs. The same happens in life too: we show ourselves to others the way we wish to, we manifest our fruits; the question is, are these but true fruits?
Fake Fruits: the culture of death
Living our life merely as living up to the expectations of the others, the demands of the society, the requirements of the trends and identifying oneself to this way of life is, putting out fake fruits: they can give meaning neither to me nor to anyone else! In our spiritual life too, we create appearances, we put up shows for the sake of those who are around and rejoice in being appreciated for what we are not, in being praised for what we do not deserve, in being identified as someone or something that we are not.
This is a culture of death – where what is not is so much hyped and appreciated and what is true is made insignificant and uncared for. We are so caught up with the unreal that the real does not matter at all. We are happy with just appearances and fantasies. Our Christian life can never be this!
Faulty Fruits: the blind life
Living our life, all the time concerned about our external image and the opinion of others, we might forget to live it from the core of our beings. We may make so much effort merely to prove ourselves to others that we may lose sight of the real life that is being wasted in the meanwhile. We become so blind to truth! Being blind we can never be guides to others, but we keep shouting to the others to follow us, we keep drawing attention of the others as if we are the models to be proposed to the world, models of so-called ‘success’, ‘achievement’ and ‘excellence’.
We are so blind to the fact that we are not living our lives, we are so blind to the fact that even others see through and notice quite soon the emptiness that is there within us! By the time, we realise that emptiness ourselves, it seems too late and too far beyond redemption. We give up! Do not give in, or do not give up, instructs the Word today… live on, live deep and move to the next level.
Fullness: the fruit of life
Living our life to the full is the natural fruit we are called to bear: bearing fruit is never a goal, it is just an outcome. The goal is, living our life to the full. The fruit follows. The more we concentrate on the end of showing out fruits to the others, the more meaningless and hollow our life becomes. The focus has to be on living our life to the full, living it in our depth, living it at the core, living it with integrity – that every thing we think, everything that we say and everything that we do, has a congruence about it.
It is in this fullness that we shall be able to notice the log that lies in our eyes and clear it so that we can help the other to remove he splinter in his or her’s. Life has to be embraced in its ups and its downs, in success and in challenges, in its glory and its grief… with hope and that is the sign of being a people of resurrection! This is being people of victory, people of the Risen Lord, appreciating and celebrating life, life in all its abundance.
Bearing Fruit is the sign of being united in the Lord, but the quality of the fruit matters the most – not fake fruits that are actually not there at all, not faulty fruits that last just a while leaving behind a unfathomable void, but fullness where fruits abound, inspiring many more to give thanks and glory to God! Yes, pray hard and live to the full that you may bear fruit – but nevertheless, beware of what kind of a fruit you put out.
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.