By Their Fruit
A lamb can never be a wolf for their natures are quite contrary but in the human condition a man’s interior is manifested in his external behavior and his words. We can come to know ourselves through our words, our thoughts and our acts while others can come to know us through our acts and our words but they can never judge our intentions. Today it is becoming quite clear that wolves are abounding in society and their words and actions are clearly the words and actions of the evil one. So let us seek to unveil the meaning of one’s words and actions as applied to eternal judgement.
In the faith of the true Catholic there is the reality that all I say, think and do will one day be exposed first in a particular judgment in which I stand before God and give an account of my life. From the particular judgment I find myself in grace and with God, in grace but lacking the purity necessary for union with God or depleted of His grace and fleeing from the face of God. At the end of the world the general judgment will reveal the goodness of the saints and the wickedness of the evil souls.
The poet presents us with a means of determining our character when he pens:
“I sow a thought and I reap a word;
I sow a word and I reap an action;
I sow an actions and I reap a habit;
I sow a habit and I reap a character.
That character is either suited for God
or for the devil.
In our summer gardens we sow seeds of the different fruits and vegetables but we know not which seeds will germinate and which will not. Even our trees and grape vines produce differently each summer. As best we care for them we must rely on God to give us the increase. By the fruit we come to know whether our soil is filled with nutrients or depleted. The interior of every seed sown manifest itself in the fruit which comes to our tables. Good fruits bespeak good trees and healthy soil. Bad fruit calls us to question whether we should allow that bad tree to remain another year.
Our Lord is presenting us with a physical expression of an interior reality known as our soul. If we have trained and desire virtue then we will produce the fruit of virtue. If we seek only our will, then the soil rots in selfishness and pride. Today the fruit of the world is manifested as secular. This secular seed cannot achieve the sacred fruit of divine love and manifests its hideousness in rioting, looting and all sorts of evil. The secular soul is a parasite upon the Christian culture that should have produced saints but failed to use the material goods of the world in a manner fitting the children of God.
So then what do parasites do? They suck out all the benefits of the good in society and create a society of leeches. When they are finished doing their slaughter of the good they will turn on each other and consume each other. At such a time the human experience will come before the tribunal of God. Humanity will end in a whimper and the thunder of judgment will come upon the good and the bad.
The good soul will live according to the 24 narrow ways that lead to heaven. They will fast, pray, practice compunction, offer vigils, live humbly, practice a poverty of spirit, contempt of the flesh, care for their soul, sleep on the ground, eat dry food, seek no comfort, accept harshness, hunger, thirst, nakedness, mercy, tears, grieving, poverty, groanings, good genuflections, persecutions, revilings from others, to be hated and not to hate, to hear evil and to render good for evil, to forgive our debtors, to lay down our lives for our friends. Lastly, to shed our blood for Christ if He asks it of us. We can’t practice them all but we need to be prepared for whatever comes our way.
Now consider the wide road which leads to hell. The apostle Paul numbers them as follows: fornication, adultery, shamelessness, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, and such like these are the steps of the wide way. Akin to these ways we find immoderate laughter, rioting, immodest dances, baths, soft clothing, sumptuous dining, flattery, prolonged sleep, insatiable desire for food, fraternal hatred, and what is worse than all this is impenitence and never recalling that we must die and be judged.
Our secular world is walking along the path that is wide and destructive of the true nature which calls us to be the saints needed to bring souls back to God. You can save a soul a day by the sacrifice you determine to perform when you wake from sleep and begin a new day following the narrow way which is modeled on our Lady and St. Joseph. Meditate upon the two ways and choose wisely for your eternal life will be manifested in the way you live today.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Voigt
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