Fruit that Endures

So all this past week, the staff here at St. Ignatius has been moving back into our offices downstairs, and as I moved back in, and began hanging up pictures on my wall, and my diplomas and certificates, it struck me that sometimes we lose track of what really matters. 

I had a chance this past Wednesday to visit the seminary, where I studied to become a priest, and the seminarians there are beginning final exams. And I remember back when I was there, being so stressed out at this time about taking the tests and doing well. At times it seemed like I was trying so hard to simply get the degree, the pieces of papers that now hang on my office wall. And looking back on all of that, I realized that none of that really mattered.

I mean at the end of the day what matters to you is not that I made good grades on my exams for my classes, what matters to you is not that I’ve have a bachelors and two masters hanging on my wall. No… What matters to you, is what kind of person, what kind of priest is standing in front of you now.

Now, I don’t want to say that my studies or my time in seminary was a waste, because it wasn’t. But what I do want to say is that, sometimes we focus on the wrong thing, and lose track of what truly matters. The only thing that truly matters is the person that you and I become.

St. John of the Cross wrote, “At the evening of life, we will be judged on our love.” At the end of our life, we will encounter God, and we will be judged on our love. Are we, am I, the kind of person that loves and is able to be loved?

But before you respond with a simple yes, I invite you to reflect a moment with me. 

To love does not simply mean that you are nice to people. To love does not simply mean that you don’t hurt anyone, or that you are a good person. To love means to want the good of the other (regardless of how you feel). This is how God loved us. He became one of us and loved us by accepting the humiliations and mockery, being betrayed by his friends, and ultimately loved us by dying on the cross. 

I’ve heard someone once say, to love means to wish that the person you dislike (the person you hate or the person who annoys you the most and gets on your last nerve) to wish that THAT person, in the end will be standing side by side next to you in Heaven. 

We are called to love our neighbor, and that means to want their good, and what is the greatest good you can want for a person? That they get into Heaven. What matters in your life, is the kind of person you become. And the kind of person you become is revealed in how you love one another. 

Jesus commands us today, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain…. Love one another”

Jesus has chosen you. That means that your life matters. What you do in your life matters. It matters to Jesus, it matters to your family, it matters to your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren… it matters to all of us. 

The question is, are you bearing fruit that will remain, that will last? All of us are given our own plot of land, and it’s limited. And we are called to plant seeds that will bear fruit that will last. But what seeds have we been planting? If you plant kale seeds, you will get kale, if you plant apples you will only get apples. Are you planting the kind of seeds that will bear fruit that will last? 

So what is one the kind of fruit that will remain and last that we should be planting in our lives? Relationships. Are we planting firm and fruitful relationships? Am I surrounded by relationships that will last? Or are all of my relationships superficial? Or am I investing my time and energy into the wrong relationships? Do I invest my time and energy into my relationships that matter? Into my marriage, into my children? Or do they often become second to my work, or personal plans?

My brothers and sisters, what you do now (where you spend your time, your attention, your energy) will affect the generations to come. At the end of our lives, when we are face to face with God, in Heaven, when the material things, the worldly accomplishments, the comfortable living, when all of that fades away… and all that is left is our relationships and our love. What will that look like? What will I look like? What will my family look like? Will there be anything there at all?

It is time, today, to focus on what really matters, it is time to invest in fruit that will last, it is time to work on relationships that are deep and that will last for eternity in Heaven.