“By Their Fruits You Will Know Them…”

“By Their Fruits You Will Know Them…”


We are now in the final ten weeks of ordinary time. It is the time when the Church looks for
the harvest, the fruits of the birth, death, resurrection of her Beloved, and the rich and powerful
results of his life-giving Spirit among us. So what fruits are being fostered? Will we spot them as
the liturgy highlights them?

In September the summer begins to cool down. The liturgy cools us down too…focusing our eyes on
the real struggle that brings forth new life. This month offers us no less than four feasts of the Mother
of God, first of the believers. She shines before us in her birth (Sept. 8), her holy name (Sept. 12), her
sorrows (Sept. 15), and a more hidden ancient feast, Our Lady of Ransom (Sept. 24). Then we are
given the powerful feast of the Holy Cross (Sept 14), a remembrance of the Korean martyrs (Sept. 20),
the Japanese martyrs (Sept. 28), and finally the Feast of the Angels (Sept. 29). This is almost a beginning
of the wonderful colors of autumn.

But what are the fruits that should be showing? First, we are reminded that we deceive ourselves if
we think growth comes without struggle. Peter will get a scolding, and all of us with him. Then we are
shown how to correct one another when we mess up. Next we are shocked to learn that there can be
no limit to forgiving. Finally, we get our values tweaked when we think about payback time. So the
skies must cry before the harvest comes.

The core of this liturgical time is the Feast of the Holy
Cross. It holds a great mystery. We are invited to stare at it
a bit. It might then reveal the true face of God. For the cross
is the most profound revelation of the Triune Mystery.

Not the abstract Three-in-One of doctrine, but the concrete
revelation of Love-in-three-dimensions. The hidden Father
is revealed to us in the Word, pinned to our human struggle,
never to be parted. The healing life-giving Spirit is
released into that time-and-place-bound struggle in the
released breath and flowing redemptive blood. They are all
there. You may want to pray this month with your crucifix
on your lap. Let it speak to you of the real God with arms
outstretched and open heart, where you can always hide out
and be comforted.

I catch my breath

When I look.

Is it really You?

My mixed-up mind has to smash all its idols.

The Real Thing takes my breath away.

I will send you the Spirit of Truth...

As Dominicans, we are flexible indeed. We move like dancers taught by a founder who chose white for the color of the religious habit for his Order, symbol of grace, light, and the baptismal garment. Dominic is also the Doctor of Truth.

But what is Truth? (We sound like Pilate!) First and most important, for the Dominican, Truth is a
person, not a proposition. Truth is not a statement of belief about God, about Jesus. It is far more. We
are referring to the One who is Truth itself, the fullness of Truth. Once we realize our Dominican life isall about a relationship with a person, then we can ask again, “Risen Lord, what are you the Truth about?

Let’s take it step by step…

Truth is the real…as known by the mind. Now what is real is real, whether we know it or not. But when we do know it, it gets inside us. We are bonded with it. Our mind is bonded with it. When we come to know this One who is the fullness of Truth, then we are in him, and he is in us. So John is spot-on in putting these words into the mouth of Jesus in his gospel.
There is nothing as real as this One who is Divine Love itself in our skin. There is nothing more concretely real than God, even if God is not material. We Dominicans have Truth as our motto: veritas! Wonder of wonders, we are talking about our relation with this Christ as the motto, the focus of our Dominican life.

This is no airy-fairy head trip. This is no abstraction. We are referring to our ever-deepening relationship with the One who is the realist of the real. No wonder then, that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Truth.” He’s talking about sending us the Spirit of his very self. The Risen One, who is the very Truth about himself and the life he has restored to us, becomes the gate, the door, and the way in. Into what? Into the very heart of God.

So is that what you are the Truth about, Jesus? You are my way, my truth, and my unending life? And you are giving me your own Spirit so I don’t ever forget it? Then I think I get it. You’re all I’ll ever really need.

                                               Fire to burn away my resistance
                                                   Tongue to give me a voice
                                              Water to wash away my arrogance
                                                    Oil to smooth my response
                                                 Dove to calm my fear in the dark
                                                          Blood to give me life
                                                      Wine to intoxicate my soul
                                                      Wind-breath to lift me up…
                              Brand me with the Truth that is my Jesus who has found a home in me.

Being Really Real

In the world of fake news and compromised truth, how do we sift through the pseudo-world that surrounds us? As one example, integrative medicine is expanding by leaps and bounds beyond the American Medical Association model in its discoveries. We welcome the return to health solutions that are natural and an alternative to prescriptions and/or surgery. We’re looking for the authentic, for the really real, and it’s not Coca Cola!

To being with, we need a way to sift through data, and if Lonergan is right, we have a consciousness made to do just that. So let’s stick to our integrative medicine example to explore how we can really be real.

Physically, the human person needs to consider three areas in seeking health. First, the structure of the human person, second the brain and nerve extensions, and third, the chemistry of the body’s hormones, enzymes, vitamins and minerals. If the bone structure is out of alignment, then the nerves and brain are affected. To use drugs alone to address these problems may be overlooking the real causes of the problem. The approach needs to be integrative. Healing can be psycho-somatic, or it can be psycho-spiritual. The first refers to our “body,” and the second to our “soul.” But the data of sense is not enough. We need to probe the data that comes from our consciousness itself. So let’s dig deeper, from outside in. The “real” includes it all.

Holistically, the human person is a physical organism, psychic energy, and a spiritual being. Each of these dimensions has distinctive functions. The organism is most familiar with its digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems to name only a few. 

The psyche is more mysterious, because it is subconscious. Its functions include imaging, imagining, dreaming and eleven powerful emotions. Love is one of these powerful emotions. When it is wounded, our spiritual functions can be crippled. Psychology can be helpful here. 

Our spiritual functions are the most wonderful of all, and they distinguish us from the animal realm because they reveal a self-reflexive consciousness. They include the experience of wonder and awe (the base of contemplation); the ability to question for understanding; arriving at a judgment of fact or truth; and evaluating the worth of something to make a decision. Our spiritual functions are open to Mystery, thus we are made for relationship with the Holy. A second look will identify our spiritual functions in the language of intellect and will, the very image of God in our humanness.

So as we continue to explore the reality of integrative wellness of our total person, we weave together the data our senses give us, and more importantly the data our consciousness reveals. The function of our consciousness reveals the process by which we sift out fact from fiction…about anything. It also identifies us as a spiritual being in a material and historical world of complex emotions and moral choices. Anything left out?  If not, we’ve taken a step toward being really real…it works!

Expanding the Tent

Our prayer during community days in June focused on the four “pillars” that give us an inside view of our Dominican charism. Another metaphor is the beauty of four shades of light within the whiteness that pieces the darkness: Common Life, Common Prayer, Study, and the Mission of proclaiming the just word.

Long ago we learned that common life meant the sharing of budgets, of food, of living space. What will common life mean as we enter the time after our 800^th Anniversary as an Order? I suggest we are being challenged to “widen the tent” of our early understanding.

We live in a world of instantaneous communication. We can be in Syria during the evening news grieving with the refugees fighting famine in their camps. We are no longer just living in our community residences. We are citizens of a world in great pain. Called to this wider sense of family, we extend our love and prayer to wherever it is needed. No boundaries prevent us. We can go to the fringes, to the frontiers. While lovingly aware of our closest local common life, we can widen our tents…we can widen our understanding of common life to our suffering brothers and sisters worldwide.  The evening news just might be our opening to expanding the tent of our common life as we live our way into our next hundred years.

Patience is Faith’s Litmus Test

As the summer readings of Ordinary Time are given to us, we are reminded of what makes for the basic healing and health of our souls. We have been reminded that even our faults and sins, the “manure” of our live, grows wonderful things. To our embarrassment even this is turned to our good by a gracious God.

Another reminder during these ordinary weeks that are not so “ordinary” is the fact that God’s pace in responding to our concerns is not to our liking. God really tests our patience. Why doesn’t God take care of these awful things…right now! How can God put up with all this suffering? Doesn’t God notice how all these people need food?…and on and on. So impatient are we that we are tempted to doubt the very existence of God, and if not this, then we might at least question God’s compassion.

Our faith gets tested. Is God really there, or not? Yet once again we are called to look at the fields and watch things grow. They have their pace, and no amount of our complaining will hasten the unfolding of what will come to be. Sometimes what we consider evil is manure for the growth of something good. God seems to let it be, and we grow impatient. The remedy is trustful faith. I just don’t see the whole picture. God does.

Holy One,

Whisk it away…all the famine, the corruption, the lies.

I want it gone.

Yet you wait…and seem to do nothing.

It exasperates me…and destroys my peace…your Easter gift.

What can I do as I rail at your delay like a petulant child.

Catch me up and calm my soul with trust that

 “All will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”