It all began with my roaming eye catching sight of an affordable start-up kit for a mini garden which I saw on the shelf of the supermarket. I know that I should have walked away but as Fr Bonaventure rightly diagnoses my condition, I’m a sucker for cheap but low-quality stuff. Well, he redeemed himself in my eyes by helping me to set up the DIY 3D puzzle which served as a mini nursery for the seeds which came with the kit. From the photograph on the packaging, I was expecting a colourful leafy plant to emerge from what looked like melon seeds (the Chinese call them kuachi). After a few days of measured watering, green sprouts began to emerge from the compost.
You can’t imagine the exhilaration I felt at seeing the first few saplings and I even began to name the first few ones which I saw - Frankie, Suzie etc. Days dragged into weeks, the saplings grew more numerous and in length and height, but they looked nothing like what was advertised. They continued to remain like stalks of supple grass. There came a time when I finally concluded, with much frustration and embarrassment, that I had been conned. No colourful leafy plant would emerge from this failed experiment of a garden. Weeds more like it. The day came when I decided that the solution lay beyond pruning. It was time for a “final solution” - time to cull. And that was the end of my little biology or horticultural experiment.
Today’s gospel passage, which resonates with this little truth of gardening, provides us with an important lesson for discipleship. For the branches to bear fruit, being attached to the vine is not the only essential prerequisite, but pruning is just as essential as well.
Any vine or bush left to itself will become straggly and tangled. Without pruning, it will eventually end up barren. A gardener understands that you need to prune in order to help the plant to realise its full potential. Through pruning, growth that is dead or dying is removed, the size and quality of the fruit is improved, and new fruit is encouraged to develop.
Our Lord tells us that His Father is the one who does the “pruning” so that we will bear more fruit. Our Lord then adds that His disciples are already “clean” because of the Word He has spoken to them. What’s the connexion between the two? What isn’t readily apparent is that the Greek word for “prune” is the same word that is translated as “clean.” The English word “catharsis” which is derived from this Greek word is used to refer to this process of pruning. Imagine the implication of this association - to prune something is to release its greatest potential.
This has important implications for us. Communion with our Lord and with each other, a communion that bears fruit, comes at a price. We must allow ourselves to be “pruned,” for us to be cleansed of our sins, for our intentions to be purified, for us to be liberated from our selfishness, arrogance and self-centered ways. We have to be spiritually detoxified. Only then can we reach our full potential. Only then can we experience real catharsis!
Unless we allow ourselves to be pruned, we may end up being barren or stagnant when it comes to growth. Our Lord describes four different levels of fruitfulness in this teaching: 1) “no fruit”, (2) “fruit”, (3) “more fruit”, and (4) “much fruit.” The Father wants more fruit from us, so much that He actively tends to our lives so we will keep growing - from barren to a productive branch. We were created to bear fruit, more fruit and much fruit! And the only way we can be more fruitful is that we must readily allow ourselves to be pruned.
Most of us have had some experience of pruning. Sorrow, disappointment, failure, a sense of weakness or some passing experience of life, a correction from a friend or from the priest, may have left us shocked and hurt, feeling cast off and rejected. Yet, here we are encouraged to remind ourselves that this is the work of a loving Father who does it so that we may "bear more fruit." St Paul as he transitioned from the zealous Christian hating Jew and Pharisee to the gospel preaching missionary, had to undergo such necessary pruning. We see glimpses of this in the first reading. Facing suspicion from other Christians, opposition and hostility from a non-friendly audience and even enduring a period of cold storage was all part of the process of pruning to prepare him for a far greater mission to the Gentiles, that would lead him through episodes of being shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten and finally being executed. He was ready to bear all these trials because of the pruning he had to endure in the early years of his new Christian life.
So don’t complain about the difficulties and challenges which God allows to happen in your lives. God’s pruning, like the loving discipline of a parent, may be painful but it is never destructive. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts” (Heb 12:6). Sometimes ‘less is more’ and through the removing of certain things in our lives or hearts, we make room for more, we make room for God. Nothing of true value is lost; in the long run, the pruning makes our lives richer. It releases our full potential - to become what we were meant to be from the very start. You may notice signs of that fruitfulness: It may have made you humbler or gentler, more patient and tolerant, more aware of your need of other people and of God. With such divine pruning, God is removing what is not essential in our lives in order for us to focus on what is essential. If God is doing the pruning, we do not have to be afraid of the painful process. We can trust that what He is doing will bear fruit, in His good time, and “bear fruit in plenty.”
Today’s gospel passage, which resonates with this little truth of gardening, provides us with an important lesson for discipleship. For the branches to bear fruit, being attached to the vine is not the only essential prerequisite, but pruning is just as essential as well.
Any vine or bush left to itself will become straggly and tangled. Without pruning, it will eventually end up barren. A gardener understands that you need to prune in order to help the plant to realise its full potential. Through pruning, growth that is dead or dying is removed, the size and quality of the fruit is improved, and new fruit is encouraged to develop.
Our Lord tells us that His Father is the one who does the “pruning” so that we will bear more fruit. Our Lord then adds that His disciples are already “clean” because of the Word He has spoken to them. What’s the connexion between the two? What isn’t readily apparent is that the Greek word for “prune” is the same word that is translated as “clean.” The English word “catharsis” which is derived from this Greek word is used to refer to this process of pruning. Imagine the implication of this association - to prune something is to release its greatest potential.
This has important implications for us. Communion with our Lord and with each other, a communion that bears fruit, comes at a price. We must allow ourselves to be “pruned,” for us to be cleansed of our sins, for our intentions to be purified, for us to be liberated from our selfishness, arrogance and self-centered ways. We have to be spiritually detoxified. Only then can we reach our full potential. Only then can we experience real catharsis!
Unless we allow ourselves to be pruned, we may end up being barren or stagnant when it comes to growth. Our Lord describes four different levels of fruitfulness in this teaching: 1) “no fruit”, (2) “fruit”, (3) “more fruit”, and (4) “much fruit.” The Father wants more fruit from us, so much that He actively tends to our lives so we will keep growing - from barren to a productive branch. We were created to bear fruit, more fruit and much fruit! And the only way we can be more fruitful is that we must readily allow ourselves to be pruned.
Most of us have had some experience of pruning. Sorrow, disappointment, failure, a sense of weakness or some passing experience of life, a correction from a friend or from the priest, may have left us shocked and hurt, feeling cast off and rejected. Yet, here we are encouraged to remind ourselves that this is the work of a loving Father who does it so that we may "bear more fruit." St Paul as he transitioned from the zealous Christian hating Jew and Pharisee to the gospel preaching missionary, had to undergo such necessary pruning. We see glimpses of this in the first reading. Facing suspicion from other Christians, opposition and hostility from a non-friendly audience and even enduring a period of cold storage was all part of the process of pruning to prepare him for a far greater mission to the Gentiles, that would lead him through episodes of being shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten and finally being executed. He was ready to bear all these trials because of the pruning he had to endure in the early years of his new Christian life.
So don’t complain about the difficulties and challenges which God allows to happen in your lives. God’s pruning, like the loving discipline of a parent, may be painful but it is never destructive. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts” (Heb 12:6). Sometimes ‘less is more’ and through the removing of certain things in our lives or hearts, we make room for more, we make room for God. Nothing of true value is lost; in the long run, the pruning makes our lives richer. It releases our full potential - to become what we were meant to be from the very start. You may notice signs of that fruitfulness: It may have made you humbler or gentler, more patient and tolerant, more aware of your need of other people and of God. With such divine pruning, God is removing what is not essential in our lives in order for us to focus on what is essential. If God is doing the pruning, we do not have to be afraid of the painful process. We can trust that what He is doing will bear fruit, in His good time, and “bear fruit in plenty.”
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