"As the banker walked away tears welled up in his eyes. He knew the Lord had spoken to him through the stone mason."

God speaks to us all the time. He speaks to personally in the day to day events of our lives. But he also speaks to us as a whole in the events that impact the entire world.

To our great regret, we often fail to listen.

In the year 2000 Pope Saint John Paul II called for a Jubilee Year and a forgiveness of third world debt. This call was largely ignored and in less than 10 years the world suffered a global financial crisis.

During this crisis, which has been called the worst since the great depression of the 1930s, countless numbers of people suffered financial ruin.

One such person had been a successful banker. But in the crisis he lost everything. He lost his job, his beautiful home, and a sizable fortune. To add to his misfortune his wife died. But in spite of all this he held on to his faith, the only thing he had left, the only thing that could not be taken away from him.

One day, as he was out searching for a job, he came across some stone masons who were doing work on a very large church. One of the masons was chiseling away at a triangular piece of rock. “where are you going to put that?” he asked the worker.

The worker paused for a moment and looked up near the top of the church. “Do you see that little space, that opening near the top of the spire? Well I'm shaping this stone down here, so it will fit in up there.”

As the banker walked away tear welled up in his eyes. He knew the Lord had spoken to him through the stone mason.

As we continue to suffer from the effects of the pandemic, we are once again faced with widespread suffering. Lost jobs, lost income, and health concerns have dramatically impacted our lives and our society. Many have had to reinvent themselves and change their lives completely in order to survive.

Similar to the stone chiseled by the mason, we are being shaped and pruned down here, so we can fit in up there. God is allowing us a time to reassess what is truly important in our lives.

In the Parable of the Vine, Jesus compares our lives to branches of the vine shaped by the vine grower. ““I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”

The parable of the vine should be a comforting one for us. We are all branches of the one true vine. We are dependent upon the Lord in all we do. “Without me, you can do nothing,” – no matter how much we think we can accomplish by ourselves. We can only bear fruit if we remain grafted to the vine.

Trees and vines are pruned by removing anything that is dead or growing wildly, anything that negatively affects the growth and health of the tree.

Imagine two peach trees growing alongside each other but planted in different fields. In one field the tree is cultivated, it is pruned yearly with the branches cut back nearly to the trunk. As a result the tree produces softball sized fruit. The fruit is plentiful, filling the tree. and the foliage is deep and lush and full, supported by a strong thick trunk.

By contrast the other tree is allowed to grow wildly, it is never pruned. The trunk is thin and spindly. The foliage is sparse, with areas of bare branches. And the fruit is small, scattered, and meager.

The tree that is pruned bears copious amounts of good fruit, the tree that is left to grow wild, bears small fruit in small amounts.

As such, if we bear good fruit we can expect to be ‘pruned.’ God will prune us just as a gardener trims and cuts back a plant so that it will grow stronger and bear even more fruit.

And there is pain involved. We are pruned of things that inhibit our spiritual growth. We are deprived of things we have become attached to and that can be painful.

What are the attachments we have that may be preventing us from growing spiritually? Wealth, power, privilege, position, are all things we may pursue that inhibit our relationship with God. What does God need to prune from our lives?

The Lord teaches us today to look at all our sufferings and trials through the eyes of faith. We need to see the difficulties we encounter in our daily lives as pruning, by which we are being disciplined and trained so that we may grow stronger in holiness and bear fruits of righteousness.

It has become something of a cliché that people near death do not regret that they did not achieve greater worldly success. They regret that they did not spend more time with family, friends, and loved ones, developing personal relationships. But being a cliché does not make it any less true.

The Lord calls us to be true branches of the vine. We are true branches if we keep His commandments, and do what pleases Him. We love one another as the Lord commanded us. If we do this then He will remain in us as we remain in Him. Then we can be confident that we are truly rooted in Christ and bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Christus Resurrexit!
5th Sunday of Easter

Pontifex University is an online university offering a Master’s Degree in Sacred Arts. For more information visit the website at www.pontifex.university

Lawrence Klimecki, MSA, is a deacon in the Diocese of Sacramento. He is a public speaker, writer, and artist, reflecting on the intersection of art and faith and the spiritual “hero’s journey” that is part of every person’s life. He maintains a blog at www.DeaconLawrence.org and can be reached at Lawrence@deaconlawrence.com

Lawrence draws on ancient Christian tradition to create new contemporary visions of sacred art. For more information on original art, prints and commissions, Please visit www.DeaconLawrence.org 

Purchase fine art prints of Deacon Lawrence’s work here.