Welcoming the Holy
Here we invite you to take time for yourself in personal prayer. The following spiritual reflection offers words and images which we hope will evoke for you an experience of God.
By: Sister Melissa Gernon
Opening Prayer
Holy Father, open the eyes of my heart during this Lenten season to look upon you with a quiet courage that prompts my heart to transform and grow ever deeper in my relationship with you. Amen.
Reading
Luke 13: 6-9
And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.’”
Reflection
All of us want our lives to matter. We want to know that we make a positive impact on the world. Sometimes, that impact takes a long time to be felt. If we are like the owner and give up after a time, the impact may never be felt. If our lives are cut short due to someone else’s actions, the fruit that God has created us to bear, may not happen. However, if we work at it like the gardener, cultivating, pruning, dare I say loving another, we will eventually bear fruit. God is like the gardener. He tends to us, giving us what we need even if we sin, turn our backs, and get off track.
Lent is a time of cultivation. It is a time to lovingly tend the relationships in our lives, especially with God, and allow the fruit to come. Maybe we won’t see it in our lifetime, but if we are faithful to the cultivation, it will happen.
Closing Prayer
Generous God, continue to cultivate and prune my life in ways that I may not understand or know. Help me draw closer to you in love so that I may bear the fruit of love with those around me. May this Lent be the time of growth and fruit-bearing that you desire for me. Amen.