Gospel Reflection- Wednesday, June 22, 2022

In today’s Gospel passage, taken from the seventh chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus gives us a tool of invaluable worth and a source of great wisdom: the test by which we are to examen our thoughts, words, and actions— “By their fruits you will know them” (Mt. 7:16).

 So often in our religious circles and in our spiritual reading do we come across various exhortations and methods to and for “discernment”. Discernment, in the simplest of terms, is the seeking of God’s will in our lives. It is through discernment that we sort through the cacophony of voices and murmurs all around us, and within us, to listen intently to the “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), and to respond with an open heart as did the Prophet Samuel: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening”  (1 Samuel 3:10).

 In our discernment, then, perhaps the primary questions we should ponder are precisely this: What fruits are my thoughts producing? What fruits are my words producing? And, finally, what fruits are my actions producing?

 If we are faithfully and honestly examining our lives under this lens, and gathering the fruits of our thoughts, words, and actions, we can then begin to examen the fruits. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, offers us the ‘formula of separation’, as it were, for what it is that we should look for in the fruits of our deeds in his discourse on the Fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5). If indeed we are “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19), and thus ‘branches on the Vine’, that is the Lord (John 15:5), we should then strive to bear these fruits—the fruits He bore in His own life. Above all, the fruit we strive always to bear is the fruit of love, for “God is love” (1 John 4:7).

So then, let us love one another as He has loved us. Count on my prayers. God bless.