Authentic Fruitfulness: To Be Good Soil for the Seed of the Word

Prayer is essentially sitting at Christ’s feet, like Mary of Bethany, and receiving the love that flows from him—or indeed leaning against his chest, like the beloved disciple, and receiving the tender and loving reverberations of his Sacred Heart. Through this profound human intimacy with Jesus, further, we are taken up into the Son’s own relationship with his Father, in the dynamic flow of love that is ever occurring between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is our highest calling and our breathtaking destiny: to be immersed into the innermost life of the Blessed Trinity, caught up into the very relationships of love and intimacy that unite the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to one another for all eternity!

We live in a world, however, that places so much emphasis on “doing” and “achieving” that people find this kind of restfulness and receptivity very difficult. So many people do not know their identity as a beloved child of the Father, and therefore they seek it in a thousand other places…when it is right there always in the depths of the heart, in that place where the Father is unceasingly loving us. This is what God desires so much to reveal to us again in a culture that has lost itself: to reveal to us His love, and that His most ardent desire is simply that we rest in His arms, in the place of belovedness where nothing matters but the intimacy of union for which He created us.

This all-enfolding Love of God is present and at work in every moment and circumstance of our lives. But because we have lost our awareness of this Love, our living relationship with the One who enfolds us in himself, Jesus came among us as one of us, and touched us in our most painful, most wounded, and darkest places, in order to reopen them to the radiant light of Love. The whole Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection is ultimately about re-opening our closed and fearful hearts to the Love of God that ever envelops us in itself. Jesus penetrates into our loneliness and isolation in order to reopen it from the inside to the expansiveness of God’s Love. In this way He immerses us again into that “torrent of love” that ever passes between Himself and His Father, and so we share, like the Virgin Mother, in the intimacy of the Trinity itself.

In this we become, like Mary, daughter, spouse, and mother (or son, spouse, and father), by experiencing the joy of adoption and of resting in the Father’s love, of nuptial union with Jesus who gives himself to us and welcomes us into himself, and of fruitfulness through the overshadowing and impregnating power of the Spirit of Love. As we have seen, these three are like concentric circles, each contained within the other: childhood enfolding all the rest, and spousal union blossoming within childhood, and this union itself bearing abundant fruit in a sacred paternity and maternity.

All childhood, spousehood, and parenthood in this world participates in these realities as they exist, in their most eminent and perfect form, in the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Source and Archetype of all childhood and nuptiality exists in the eternal union between the Father and the Son in their one Spirit, in the ardent flame of Love that passes ceaselessly between them, in their mutual acceptance and surrender of self. And God’s eternal creativity, even before the creation of the world, is that “from which all fatherhood on heaven and earth takes its name”: that mystery by which the Father eternally begets His beloved Son within the “womb” of the enfolding Spirit, and the mystery of the Spirit’s procession from the shared union of the Father and the Son, which is overflowingly fruitful.

We were created to share in this Mystery, and in our human relationships we indeed image and reflect it. Nonetheless, childhood, spousehood, and parenthood in this world are only images. It is in our relationship and union with God himself that we pass fully from image to Reality, from reflection to the fullness of Light: in the truth of childhood before our true and heavenly Father, in the indwelling love of spousal union with the Bridegroom Jesus, and in that beautiful “spilling over” of love and creativity that blossoms from this union in the eternal fecundity of the Holy Spirit.

How beautiful it is that each vocation manifests this in its own unique way. Marriage does this through refracting the mystery of the Holy Trinity within the concreteness of human relationships in this world, through the union of husband and wife and their shared bringing forth and raising of children. And consecrated chastity does this through passing from image to Archetype, to the fullness of Reality, and immersing itself directly into the flowing stream of the Trinity’s life, and loving all others from within the transforming flames of this embrace. The virginal heart thus becomes spouse and parent, not in a normal, biological or physical way, but from within the newness of relationship that has become possible within the Heart of Jesus Christ. And yet both vocations together participate in the same mystery. Indeed, at their core, they are united in a single reality that transcends their differences: simply to be a child, spouse, and parent within the primary and all-encompassing relationship with the Blessed Trinity. And within the newness of this union, we are enabled to love all others with a full and concrete humanity, yet a humanity redeemed and irradiated by the divine light which both affirms all that is human and yet elevates it to participate in the fullness of God’s life from which it has come and for which it was created.

Let us take a further step, therefore, by returning to our reflections on the unique meaning and mystery of the contemplative life within the Church. We have just seen that, in its inmost core, all of Christian life is essentially contemplative, since it is enveloped in the loving embrace of the Trinity and springs forth ceaselessly from our repose against the Heart of Jesus Christ. Indeed, not only is contemplative receptivity the inmost heart of Christian life, it is also the highest goal toward which it is directed at every moment. Also, all true and enduring fruitfulness, in order to truly make God present in the fullness of his Mystery, must spring from a prior and abiding contemplative receptivity, such that we conceive his grace and life within us by the power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore allow him to make himself more deeply present in our world.

This is the meaning, for example, of Jesus’ parable on the seed that is scattered on the ground, with only certain kinds of soil allowing the seed to sprout, grow, and bear fruit:

A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. (Matthew 13:3-8)

It is profoundly important to realize that the seed bears fruit of its own power, if only the soil yields itself up entirely to it and nourishes, shelters, and protects it. This, precisely, is what the contemplative vocation is about. It is about becoming good soil in which, in the most radical way possible, the seed of the Word can implant itself and bear abundant fruit. Here, again, the Virgin Mary is the most perfect example: for it was she, before anyone else, who offered her entire being in contemplative and virginal receptivity to the seed of the Word, conceiving him literally within her heart and in her womb. But this contemplative receptivity did not end with the Annunciation, nor after the nine months of pregnancy were concluded. Rather, this receptivity was Mary’s most central and enduring attitude throughout her entire life.

Saint Luke, who most probably spoke with her directly and in depth about her experience (for how else could he know about the events of the first two chapters of his Gospel?), makes a point of this contemplative receptivity. He portrays her very explicitly as the one who is “good soil” for the Word, who is Jesus Christ himself. Her first assent is her “Let it be to me according to your word,” but then this assent is renewed and perpetuated at every moment of her life afterwards. When the shepherds come to see the Christ Child and the choir of angels cries out in the heavens, Luke says that “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart,” and again, after the finding of the twelve year old Jesus in the temple after three days: “his mother kept all these things in her heart” (2:19; 2:51). She has conceived already through faith and brought Christ into the world, but her abiding love and acceptance allows her to lay her being open for the ever-deeper revelation of the mystery of God and his love. God, for his part, can do immense and beautiful things in and through her, precisely because her heart is a pure dwelling-place for the gift of his love.

In her he finds the home that he seeks, the space in which he can pour out the torrent of generosity which overflows from his Heart. Further, her contemplative surrender allows God to draw her into the awesome mysteries of the life of Christ, and indeed into the most intimate depths of his own Being. Is it not she who abides, full of faith, at the foot of the Cross of Jesus, when the faith of the others falters? She is there to receive the outpouring gift of the divine Bridegroom’s love as it flows from his opened Heart. And she bears this gift within her without ceasing, conceiving again as the archetype of the Church, in order to bring forth perpetually from the fount of Baptism new children of the heavenly Father. We see this mystery symbolized so beautifully in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. After the commemoration of the mystery of Christ’s passage through the darkness of this world as the burning Flame that brings light to fallen humanity, and after the in-breaking joy of his Resurrection, the celebration of Baptism begins: the rebirth of new children of God, the most precious fruit of the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Before the sacrament of Baptism is administered, the new water of the font is blessed. But how is it blessed? It is not blessed as on other days. Rather, it is blessed and sanctified—made life-bearing and fruitful—by the descend of the Easter Candle, the symbol of Christ, into it three times. This is the mystery of the Bridegroom’s outpouring love entering into the receptive womb of the bridal Church, in order to make her fruitful as the Mother of all the faithful.

Now this awesome mystery is not true only of the Virgin Mary, nor only of the universal Church in her transcendent mystery, but of every individual soul. We are all invited to be “mothers” of Christ by welcoming his gift and conceiving through his divine power at work within us. Indeed, we can say that authentic fatherhood itself must immerse itself in this bridal and maternal mystery, so as to become transparent to the authentic light and love of God himself.

The contemplative life embraces this mystery in an intense and profound way, not only in the life of contemplative women, but also, with its own nuances and meaning, in the life of men. Their whole life is dedicated to welcoming the outpouring of the gift of Christ, to allowing God to make a space within them where his love finds full and total acceptance. Having experienced the healing and life-giving love of God, they open themselves through prayer, imploring this grace for others, for all who thirst and ache for this mystery, and yet who find their hearts closed to it in brokenness and sin. The openness of those who pray serves to carve out an openness in the hearts of others—as their love paves the way for love, and their union with God opens the way to this union for others as well.

We see that this mystery is operative not only in women, but also in men, through another disciple who was intimately close to the Heart of Christ: John, the beloved disciple. He was willing to let himself be drawn near to Christ in intimate friendship and to lean his head against Jesus’ chest, listening in contemplative receptivity to the heartbeat of Eternal Love. Through this receptivity he welcomed into himself the mystery of this Love, and bore it within his heart for the rest of his life. Indeed, he let himself be enfolded within the cradling arms of the Trinity, whose mystery burst in upon him through his human closeness to Christ.

He, therefore, remained close to Jesus even through the agony of the Cross, standing at the side of Mary on Calvary. Here he witnessed the greatest love in the complete gift of Christ, and, though at this point he did not comprehend what was occurring, he nonetheless let himself be inserted into the saving reality of the Paschal Mystery. He was taken up, in other words, by all-sustaining grace, and therefore conceived the richness of Love within his own heart and life. This radical receptivity allowed him to be the first apostle to believe in the Resurrection of the Lord, and then to become a powerful witness of the meaning of Jesus’ life, suffering, and victory over death. He came to see and understand, radiating from the incarnate Son at every moment of his life, the “glory” of the Trinity, a glory which is identical with Love. This Glory of Love is precisely the reality to which his Gospel bears such eloquent witness.