Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It is a beautiful gospel and a strong word on conversion, which is a word that is very misused by people in our times. Conversion is a profound experience that touches deeply the heart of a person. St. Paul used the Greek word metanoia to describe what it means. The person undergoes a radical change of mentality shown by a 180-degree change in how he lives his life, totally contrary to whom he was before. St. Paul had this moment in his life which was a very clear encounter with the Lord on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians. He did not see Jesus Christ that day, but perceived a great light that knocked him to the ground and heard a voice that said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” It was only a question, but it worked in him and was the beginning of a journey that led him to leave everything and follow Jesus Christ. His radical change started that day, and it was a fight that had many rounds.
We can all have the danger of thinking the moment of the BOOM is our conversion. St. Paul knew that this was the start of a race that would last all his life. He knew himself well and said of himself that he was an abortion, the worst of the apostles, the least one, because I persecuted the Church. St. Paul said all of this. And later in life he would write, I want to do good, but I find myself doing the evil inside of me. I don’t know what is wrong with me because I want to do good, but I cannot, and I do the evil that I hate. At this time, he had already encountered the Lord.
It was later in life when he was in jail and close to his death when he said, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” He knew Christ was in him. This is conversion; it is a journey. The greatest danger is to believe that I have already converted. This is a big lie the devil tells us. It is very troubling to hear people say phrases like, on the day I converted…When they say something like that, I ask them, “And how do you live today?” It is not by chance that Jesus uses the example of a fig tree, which is very leafy and can give the appearance of having a lot of fruit but there’s none.
Conversion is not like the day you quit smoking or when you broke off an adulterous relationship. It is much deeper, and it pertains to the heart. This is why the gospel says the man came in search of fruit on his fig tree for three years and there was none. I don’t know how many years you have been in the Church, but probably more than three and how much fruit have you found? Jesus Christ describes the fruit he is looking for at the Last Supper. He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Well, you may think that you love your son very much and I hope that it is true, but that love is not because Jesus Christ loved you. It comes naturally. To love as Christ loved us is to love the person when they were wretched, wicked and sinful. This is the love of the enemy. If you love those who loved you, what merit do you have, even the pagans do that?
You do not need Jesus for you to love your child or to love your mother. You don’t need Jesus Christ to love your boyfriend or girlfriend or to love your husband the first few months or years of your marriage. It is after that time when you need the Lord. The gospel says love those who hate you and pray for those who persecute you—this in conversion!
I have made a list of my enemies not to send a hit man to take care of them, but to pray for them, by name, often. Probably they are my enemies because of my fault, for something that I did. But it is good to pray for them and for those who persecute you and speak ill of you.
The Lord says something precious at the end of this gospel. He does not want to cut down the fig tree because there is no fruit, but rather he says there is someone who intercedes for that fig tree and says to leave it for one more year and if there is no fruit, then you can cut it down. We only have a certain amount of time, brothers and sisters, and we don’t know how much we have. We don’t know if we are going to live forty or fifty or eighty years. We have no idea. We do know that our Lord has for us key moments of a special grace to start or deepen that way or journey of conversion.
There are special moments where the Lord fertilizes us, where he throws some manure around us. What is that manure? Some Fathers of the Church say it is the sins of the flesh. It is something that makes us uncomfortable; it smells bad, and it is necessary to dig around it, which means to be humble and be patient with ourselves. I remember when we used to go to Swartswood Lake as a family when we were little and there was always a very strong smell, and you could not get away from it. But that is why tomatoes and corn and everything tastes so well. Our Lord wants you to have fruit that will remain and that will be tasty. It will be good and enjoyable and that others will be satisfied. It is so good thanks to that manure. I love that scene in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” when the angel Clarence shows George Bailey what his town would have looked like if he had not been there.
The Lord doesn’t want us to sin, but he allows certain sins depending on the fruit we are going to bear. This is why we can say at Easter, “Oh, happy fault that deserved so great a Savior”. St. Paul did not want us to continue sinning, no, but to look back and see that those sins were the fertilizer that changed our hearts. Where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. We have all sinned a lot; we have all thrown a lot of manure and God willing it will abound in much fruit of love, especially for the enemy. Let us pray that our lives will be very fruitful with deeds of love, forgiveness and service. What could be better than this!