Good Foundations, Good Trees, Good Fruit

Saturday of the 23rd Week in Course 2023

One of the more memorable periods in our married life was the year in which we decided to build a new house in a gated community. That was, no doubt, one of the less intelligent actions we’ve taken in the past half-century, but it certainly taught us a great deal about life and family. In fact, I recommend building something to every Christian, but not necessarily a new home. Maybe a storage shed or a greenhouse or an aviary, but something with a foundation. That, as Jesus implies in the Gospel, is the critical first step after drawing up plans.

These days many foundations are of poured, reinforced concrete, and the construction takes quite some time. What I’ll focus on here is something that wise builders always do right as the final concrete is poured. You take a small rectangular mold and pour concrete into it, and let it cure along with the rest of the pour. Then, after a set number of days, you let a testing lab apply stress to it, and see what sheer force it will tolerate. Less force needed than the standard tables tell you, and you have to start over, lest the stresses the home experiences, especially from outlier events like earthquake or hurricane cause the foundation to rupture and the “ruin of the house be great.”

Jesus is the Son of God, and through Him everything in creation was made. He is a kind of master builder of both physical and spiritual worlds. So only an idiot would ignore His well-made plans, beginning with the Ten Commandments, which Our Lord reiterated to His disciples, and the Sermon on the Mount. Applications of this wonderful blueprint of life can be found in the Catechism, Part III, “Life in Christ.”

Our Lord has another excellent analogy for us here in Luke’s Gospel, which is also found in Matthew. Good trees like figs and peaches and dates produce good fruit. Good men and women produce good actions from the good treasure in their hearts. What is this “good treasure”? The original Greek uses the word agathos, which is the same word used for the goodness of God. So when we have minds, wills, hearts devoted to God, always saying “yes” to God’s will, we will produce the same kind of good fruit that God produced in the beginning, when He said “very good” over all creation.

All of this is well and good. Life in Christ is the goal to which we should all aspire. Doing only good is the perfection of the Christian life, and if everyone lived like that our world would be much different, right? But it’s not like that at all. We are all sinners; even the just man sins seven times a day. So St. Paul puts himself at the head of that sinner list. After all, he not only disbelieved in the message of Jesus, he was the chief persecutor of Christians in Judea for a time. But he repented when Jesus showed him His Light on the road to Damascus, and he was baptized there and freed from his sins. So he tells Timothy–and all the rest of us–that if Jesus Christ could use him as an example of perfect patience, then we all, sinners though we may be, have the same opportunity–repent and believe the Good News. Then through continual repentance and sacramental life, we can live and grow in Christ, and spread His message of joy and reconciliation to a world in desperate need of Him. Who is like the Lord, who does this for us? Blessed be His name forever.