Picking Fruit

Gospel: Luke 6: 43-49

If a person spends their mental time occupied with thoughts of suspicion, hatred, and animus toward others, they are likely to produce words and speech that exemplify those thoughts, which in turn lead to actions of violence against others.  If, by contrast, a person uses that mental time to have empathy and compassion for others, their words and speech will in turn be akin to these thoughts, and thus produce actions of loving kindness toward others.  

Jesus did not sit around thinking badly of others.  He did not sit around judging others and writing invective against them.  Instead, Jesus spent entire nights in prayer with God on the mountaintop.  Then, he came down the mountain, going from town to town healing people of their infirmities, liberating them from their demons, and nourishing them at table.  The Son of Man came not to condemn others but to save them.  

Every human being has this same choice before them.  We can be consumed with the news cycle and sit around condemning other people, only creating more hatred, division, and violence.  Or we can be consumed with the liturgical cycle, reflecting on the life of Jesus and seeking ways to heal, liberate, and nourish other people as Jesus did.  One of these trees produces rotten fruit; the other tree produces good fruit.