5th Week of Easter 2025 - Wednesday - Spiritual pruning

 

These final weeks of the Easter season, we continue to read from the Lord’s Last Supper Farewell Address.

At this point, the Lord has spoken already about the importance of keeping His Commandments coming of the Holy Spirit, and the rich tapestry of the discourse continues to unfold as he speaks today about his desire for his disciples to bear fruit, and that can only happen if we remain connected to Him—as a vine to its branches--by loving him, following his teachings, and receiving his divine life through the sacraments.

Yet, the Lord also speaks today of pruning. “He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”

Every gardener knows that the purpose of pruning is to encourage growth. The gardener prunes his plants by trimming away dead or overgrown branches to encourage growth. Pruning makes the plant healthier and more fruitful. 

So too with our spiritual lives. The Lord, as the Divine Gardener, permits trials, corrections, and even painful losses—not as punishments, but as moments of pruning meant to detach us from sin, pride, complacency, or anything that blocks His grace. At times, He cuts away our comforts, our illusions of control, or even relationships and routines that are not helping us grow in holiness.

The pruning may hurt. It may leave us feeling exposed or uncertain. But it is never pointless. It is the loving work of a Gardener who sees what we cannot—the fruit we are capable of bearing if we are purified, simplified, and reshaped by His hand.

The Church, too, undergoes seasons of pruning. When scandals, divisions, or worldly influences are stripped away, it can feel as though the vine is being cut back. Yet, through purification and renewal, the Church is drawn back to her mission, and her witness becomes more fruitful.

Let us not resist the pruning of the Lord but welcome it as an act of divine love. Let us cooperate with His grace, trusting that through whatever trials we endure, He is making us more like Christ and preparing us to bear abundant fruit—for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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Trusting in the loving care of the Divine Gardener, who prunes and purifies us so that we may bear lasting fruit, we lift our prayers to the Father.

For the Church, that in every season of purification and trial, she may remain firmly rooted in Christ and emerge more faithful and fruitful in her mission.

For the grace to detach from sin, selfishness, and anything hinders the life of God’s grace, so that we may more fully embrace His will

For those undergoing suffering, loss, or uncertainty, that they may recognize in their trials the loving hand of the Lord preparing them for greater growth in holiness.

For our beloved dead, that having remained in Christ during this life, they may now share in the eternal joy of His Kingdom.

Heavenly Father, lovingly tend and shape your people. Hear our prayers and grant that we may always remain in your Son, the True Vine, and bear fruit that endures to eternal life. Through Christ our Lord.

5th Week of Easter 2021 - Wednesday - Allow yourself to be pruned

 

We hear again today how the Lord wants his Church to produce spiritual fruit. We bear spiritual fruit by remaining connected to Jesus—by loving him, following his teachings, and receiving his divine life through the sacraments.

Yet, the Lord also speaks today of pruning. “He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”

Every gardener knows that the purpose of pruning is to encourage growth. The gardener prunes his plants by trimming away dead or overgrown branches to encourage growth. Pruning makes the plant as a whole healthier and more fruitful. 

The idea of the Lord cutting away parts of our lives is somewhat off putting, because we are emotionally attached to our habits, our way of doing things, our way of communicating with people. And for most of us there is a lot of good already going on in our lives. We are already bearing fruit. But the Lord says, I want to prune those who are already bearing fruit to bear more fruit.

Baptized Christians have already received a major pruning. There has already been a severing from unbelief and pagan idolatry. There has already been a severing from the false teachings of the world. Many of us have had serious major sin cut out of our lives. And we’ve already begun to see fruits of faith and truth in us. But the Lord wants more fruit.

God wants to increase joy, and peace, forbearance, patience, goodness, self-control, and gentleness in us, and in our parish, in the Church as a whole. But in order to accomplish this, Jesus explains that we need more pruning. He allows us to grow for a while, then he prunes, that there might be new shoots of growth stemming up from the root. 

How does he do this? In the same way he accomplished our initial pruning: through his word, his teachings. Whenever we read the bible, we should hope to find some truth that will prune us—that will trim away some impatience, some in gratitude, some stinginess, some pride. Whenever we encounter the lives or writings of the saints, we should hope to glimpse or detect something in them that will prune us, to cut away some coldness, some laziness, some attachment to worldly comfort.

The secret to the joy and peace of the saints is that they have allowed themselves to be pruned so many times that fruit becomes abundant. And the Lord wants the  same for us, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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Filled with Paschal joy, let us turn earnestly to God, to graciously hear our prayers and supplications.

For lasting peace throughout the world: Christ, the Prince of Peace will put an end to all enmity and division, and unify the peoples of the world.

For Pope Francis and Bishop Malesic, that they may have the strength to govern wisely the flock entrusted to them by the Good Shepherd and for an increase in vocations to the ordained priesthood, and that our priests may serve the Church with the love and devotion of the Good Shepherd.

That during this month of May, Christians may turn to Mary, Mother of the Church, seeking her aid and imploring her intercession with increased and fervent devotion, especially by praying the Holy Rosary. Let us pray to the Lord.

For deliverance from all evil and all temptation: for those under the influence of drug abuse, addiction, insanity, occultism, atheism, sexual perversion, and any spiritual evils which degrade the human person.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness, and that the Lord may grant his gift of peace to those most in need of it.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection.

O God, who know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.