Reflection on the Sunday Gospel
By nature Goodness diffuses itself while by nature evil destroys itself. It is a simple philosophical formula that is so important to live by in these days in which a battle rages. Our Lord makes it very clear that a good tree produces good fruit while the bad tree produces a bad fruit. Hence you will know the tree by the fruit that it bears. Hence we know people by the fruit that they bear. This fruit is exposed by one’s words, one’s manners and one’s actions.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Do you think that in the kingdom of God you will hear foul and four lettered language? If you answer negatively then that language must not be a part of our vocabulary. Check your conversations, your jokes, the language you listen to when speaking with your buddies. If you examine yourself well then you know whether your language is fit for the kingdom of God. As Don Bosco said to his Salesians and the boys that three things destroy the soul: 1) bad language,2) bad books and 3) bad companions. Priority number one in our pursuit of holiness is to clear up our language. This is done by a faithful reading of the Holy Gospel daily. Crowd out the bad with the good.
Next we can come to know the good person from the bad because of their manners. A true Christian is refined and reverent. The phony takes a shake with every little thing that does not fit his way of thinking. The Liberal of today is on display for their intolerance and hatred. Consider all the years we had to put up with a president that sought to destroy the country’s character and now someone is elected whom the liberal did not want and all hell breaks loose. As they produce the fruit of their hatred they advertise to their world of their father, a Satanic deceiver and liar. Hence they become just the same as the devil. The truly good soul does not even condemn the evil of others but prays for their salvation and is ready to lay down his life for their salvation for we do not want evil to take any soul. Again the solution to this liberalism is the reverential love of God and the desire to do His Will and not our own.
Finally, the good soul knows the 24 narrow doors that lead one to the kingdom of God. His soul is trained to virtue through these doors. This sincere soul practices the 7 corporal works of mercy and is always ready to help. This person practices the 7 spiritual works of mercy in order to further the understanding of God’s desire. This soul has devotion to the blessed Mother, the Holy Eucharist, the traditions of the Church, the sign of the cross, good genuflections, love of the Stations of the Cross. These are signs of the goodness within the heart of the soul that bears good and everlasting fruit.
Quite the opposite with the poisoned tree for this soul seeks only self and cannot abide by anyone who may have greater talents. The evil individual seeks to kill the good spirit in another soul. He isolates himself as one who is better than all others; he is smarter and wiser than God Himself. Evil has no future but considers itself better off than all those Christian hypocrites. You are capable of adding to the fruit of the evil tree but it all comes down to this point: this soul is seeking the world and its pleasures through the imitation of the Father of all vice.
Our faith is meant to produce good trees. These good trees under the guidance of our Mother desire to follow her in accepting God’s will in all circumstances. As Job puts it: “We accept good things from God, should we not also accept evil?” We may think that something is evil when in reality it is God’s means of purifying our souls. As gold is tried in the fire so must we be tried, tested and purified. Uphold the universal law expressed by our Lord and know that if you are with Him then your fruit will remain. Keep united with our Lady and our Lord and your soul will continue to flourish in holiness. You will know the tree by its fruit.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt, S.D.B.
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