The Good Fruits of Grace

Saturday, October 26th Readings Reflection: Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

“Cut it down therefore: why cumbereth it the ground” (Lk 13:7 DRB)? This is a grave warning, made even graver by the explanation provided by Pope St. Gregory the Great: “For every one according to his measure, in whatsoever station of life he is, except he shew forth the fruits of good works, like an unfaithful tree, cumbereth the ground; for wherever he is himself placed, he there denies to another the opportunity of working” (Catena aurea).

This stark warning should impel us to evaluate whether we ourselves “cumbereth the ground” or whether we bear good fruit. St. Thomas Aquinas explained that when speaking of spiritual fruits, there are two ways in which we should understand the term. In one sense, “the fruit of man, who is likened to the tree, is that which he produces.” In the other sense, which is intrinsically connected to the first, “man’s fruit is what he gathers.” However, the Angelic Doctor was careful to point out that “not all that man gathers is fruit, but only that which is last and gives pleasure…. [M]an’s fruit is his last end which is intended for his enjoyment” (Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 70).

Man’s last end is ultimately union with God, Who is the Source of goodness itself. Man is ordered toward the good, and all of his desires are ordered toward this good. Unfortunately, because of Original Sin, we can have erroneous understandings of what constitutes the good. Our disordered passions can lead to our pursuing a disordered end that produces a false pleasure—bad fruit.

How then can we bear good fruits and attain the last end and pleasure of which the Angelic Doctor wrote? On our own, we cannot. St. Thomas Aquinas explained that fruits “are produced by the Holy Ghost working in us” (ibid.); in other words, they are the products of grace working in and through us. In this way, we both gather good fruits by gathering the effects of grace in our soul, and we produce good fruits by performing good actions in response to the grace within our souls. When we do so, we do not “cumbereth the ground” but instead bear good fruit, fruit that will lead not only our own souls to eternal salvation but also the souls of many others whom we encounter in our daily lives.

May we always seek to gather the good fruits of God’s grace in our soul, and may we never cease to produce good fruits by this grace, so that many souls may be won for Christ.

Christ’s Blood, poured forth for us on the Cross, is the Source of all grace. Our Lord grants us this grace through the Church, her Sacraments, and her Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.