A recurring theme in Our Lord’s teaching is “You shall know them by their fruits.” Time and again Jesus warns His disciples that they must hold themselves to a higher standard of mercy and forgiveness than that of the Pharisees. He sends them out into the world with the expectation that they will generously give of themselves, and He will give success to the work of their hands. Our success does not depend solely on
us, but we have to be unrelenting and intense in the manner in which we live out our vocation of priest, prophet, and king in the world.

One of the underappreciated factors that led to the Beacons of Light initiative that we are undertaking is that what we have been doing has not been bearing fruit for some time. I am not here to cast stones and point fingers, as I know that so many unsung individuals at countless parishes have poured themselves out to hand on the Faith and make disciples. But, regardless of good intentions, these efforts have not, as a whole, been successful. We are not talking simply about not having enough priests to staff full churches. We are talking about a steady decline, year after year, in the number of people who practice their Faith. Pick up any report about religiosity in America and the numbers speak for themselves. Even a startling number of people who do identify as Catholic no longer believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We are, as a collective whole, not unlike the barren fig tree that Jesus points out in today’s Gospel. In our Baptism we are marked with the sign of Christ, in Confirmation we receive the fullness of the Gifts of the Spirit that we need to witness to Him, and in the Eucharist, we are nourished for this work. Every Sacrament prepares us in some way for the unique call that God places on our hearts, and in the fullness of time He comes to us to prod us to action. In many important ways, we have not born fruit, and we know that this is not God’s plan for us.
 
Of course, we have to steer clear of the notion that tells us that unless we are “useful” to God, we are somehow worth less or less beloved by Him. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But if we truly capitalize on the gifts we have been given in our families, in our parishes, and in the Universal Church as a whole, then we can trust that God will take our generosity and multiply it, as He is never to be outdone in generosity. This Lent, as we journey through a time of preparation, of sacrifice, and of dying to ourselves, let us keep this goal in mind. Everything we do as a parish community is meant to prepare us for mission, and by cooperating with God’s grace, our efforts will bear fruits that we may not always see, but that will result in souls being won for Our Lord.