Daily Gospel Reflection

The Fruit of Your Life

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we're exploring the genius of the gospel. Remember, we're looking for a word or phrase or an idea to allow the gospel to sink its roots deep into our lives today. Today's reading is the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21 verses 33 to 43 and 45 to 46. "Hear another parable," Jesus said. "It was a householder who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and let it out to tenants and went into another country. When the season of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenant to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one and killed the other and stoned the third. Again, he sent other servants more than the first. And they did the same to them. Afterward, he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, 'This is the heir, come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.' And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. When, therefore, the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do with those tenants? They said to him, 'He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.' And Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in the Scriptures the very stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.' This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit. When the chief priests and Pharisees heard this, they perceived that he was speaking about them. But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes because they held him to be a prophet."

So what jumps out at you here today? What jumps out at me is producing the fruits. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits. I always think about, like, what kind of fruit are we producing here at Dynamic Catholic? Are we producing as much fruit as we can here at Dynamic Catholic? What can we do differently this year than we did last year to produce more fruit this year than we did last year at Dynamic Catholic. I think it's a healthy obsession. It's definitely an obsession. Hopefully, it's a healthy obsession. But I want us to be fruitful. I want us to be abundantly fruitful. I want it to be like incontrovertible that just there's amazing fruit coming forth from this great group of people working here. And that's what Jesus is talking about today. And we see a lot of things in the world come and go and very often because they lose their mission because they do stop being fruitful, do stop being fruitful. And so we can think about this in terms of an organization today. We can think about it in terms of Dynamic Catholic, but we also have to think about it in personal terms. How fruitful is your life? How fruitful is my life? Are we producing the fruit that God wants us to produce? Because you could be very fruitful but be producing the wrong kind of fruit. If God is calling you to produce this kind of fruit and you say, "Nah, I don't want to do that. God, I'm going to do this kind of fruit over here," well, then that's a different kind of problem. And so that's what jumps out at me today. The phrase producing the fruit. Are we producing the fruit? God bless you. Have an amazing day. Don't just be yourself, be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.