If you want to know Jesus, you need to know that He is patient with us.
Read chapter 13 of the gospel according to Saint Luke here.
The patience of Jesus is illustrated in the parable of the fig tree. For three years the fig tree has failed to produce any fruit. The owner of the orchard, quite reasonably, asks his gardener to cut the tree down. Who wouldn’t chop the tree down and start fresh? But the gardener intervenes on the tree’s behalf, offering to nourish it with special care throughout the next year, to see if it will bear fruit.
Jesus is the gardener. He nourishes us with His word and through the sacraments of His Church. He refreshes us with life-giving water in the sacrament of baptism. He feeds us in the Eucharist. He heals us in the sacrament of reconciliation. He is patient with us. He knows some trees will go through many seasons without bearing fruit, yet in the fullness of time they will bear fruit under His continual care. He does not give up on us at the first opportunity, or the second, or the third, or the thirty-third. When a reasonable person would have cut his losses and moved on, Jesus continues to care for us.
His loving concern for His people is especially evident in His lament for Jerusalem. Jesus knows full well that some people will reject Him, despite His signs and wonders, despite the miracles He performs, despite His love and mercy. And He weeps for those who reject Him.
Note too that Jesus expects us to bear good fruit in this life. He loves us and is patient with us, but we must accept His mercy and bear good fruit before it is too late. What is the good fruit we must produce? We must show mercy to others as He has shown mercy to us. We can show mercy in many ways: by feeding the poor, by loving and caring for those God has placed in our lives, by forgiving those who have wronged us, by being present for those who are suffering, by praying for those in need.
“The preaching of the Gospel grew and was disseminated throughout the whole world. It grows also in the mind of every believer, for no one is suddenly made perfect. But in its growth, not like the grass (which soon withers), but it rises up like the trees. The branches of this tree are the mainfold doctrines, on which the chaste souls, soaring upwards on the wings of the virtue, build and repose.” -Saint Bede the Venerable
Image: Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the well by Angelika Kauffman (downloaded from Wikipedia Commons).
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
