GROWING IN IMMORTALITY THROUGH THE WORD

 

SUNDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Sirach 27:5-8; Ps 92:2-3,13-16; 1 Cor 15:54-58; Lk 6:39-45

Bearing good fruits in the Vineyard of the Lord

Every natural thing the Lord God made is faithful to the will of God expressed in its nature. Thus, at every turn of our gaze, we behold natural things in their faithful witnessing to God’s goodness and benevolence. We posited the lesson in faithfulness, which man is supposed to learn from the school of nature, as the reason for placing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden full of good things to behold. Instead of conversing with these good and natural things, Eve conversed with the evil one and received a seed of corruption. Though we dwell no longer in the physical Garden of Eden, the Garden remains spiritually with us because the cause of the Garden is the word of God given to us. Thus, we have reflected that faith in the word of God admits us here and now into the Garden of Eden. So, we can still converse with the good and natural things and their cause, God, through his word. Sirach reveals how to discern the company any man is keeping. Our speech reveals the tree we have been eating of its fruit. “In a shaken sieve the rubbish is left behind, so too the defects of a man appear in his talk. The kiln tests the work of the potter, the test of a man is in his conversation.” If we have fed our minds on the pods meant for the swine, our thoughts and words will be unclean.

Do we sense the good and natural things Yahweh created for our edification and the upliftment of our thoughts to the sublime? Do we feed on the word of God that brought everything into existence? The Holy Bible, in this sense, is the orchard of spiritual food of different varieties and exquisite tastes. The collection of the holy scriptures constitutes the spiritual Garden of Eden. Sirach confirms this: “The orchard where a tree grows is judged on the quality of its fruit, similarly a man’s words betray what he feels.” The Lord banished Adam and Eve from the terrestrial paradise he made for them, but he did not prevent them from entering the spiritual paradise, for he left his word with them as a path leading to it. The word of God is not just a path leading us to the spiritual paradise but is the paradise of God. The testimony of the Psalmist lends support to this conviction. “The just will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a Lebanon cedar. Planted in the house of the Lord they will flourish in the courts of our God, still bearing fruit when they are old, still full of sap, still green, to proclaim that the Lord is just.” Because we eat of God’s word day and night, our lives will testify to the goodness of God, just as everything natural testifies to the same goodness of God by remaining faithful to their nature. The palm tree and the cedar of Lebanon used to compare the just souls point to the aforementioned faithfulness in nature.  

Just as what we eat becomes us on the material level, we change into what we eat on the spiritual level. By eating natural things made good by God, they nourish our bodies by their material compositions; they also nourish our spiritual life by the operations of their natures, which are intelligible patterns or operations assimilated by our intellect or intelligence. Thus, natural things do not only feed us materially but spiritually also. The word of God we read or hear and keep in our hearts enhances the spiritual food we receive daily from natural things. The enhancement is necessary because the corruption of sins has depleted the nutritional quality of nature. So, the perishable nature receives transformation through the word of God. “When this perishable nature has put on imperishability, and when this mortal nature has put on immortality, then the words of scripture will come true: Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your victory?”

It follows that our eating of the word of God leads us gradually into greater participation in the life of God. Though it may not seem very evident now, daily reading, meditation, and contemplation of the word of God is a gradual subtraction of death through the removal of sin, its sting, and the addition of immortal life that is the word of God. That man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God is true in this sense. Subsequently, we are to make friends and keep the company of those whose lives are patterned on the word of God so that we would not walk in darkness. “Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher; the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher.” It is important to check what we confess through our words and behaviour. Our Lord proclaimed woes on anyone who leads his little ones astray. We ensure the quality of our fruit through reading, meditating, and contemplating the word of God daily. “For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness.” Here, the Lord confirms the faithfulness in the things of nature we posited above. God calls us to plant ourselves in the orchard of his word and his Eucharistic presence to bear fruits that will last.

Let us pray: Grant us, O Lord, we pray, that the course of our world may be directed by your peaceful rule and that your Church may rejoice, untroubled in her devotion. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.