By Their Fruits

Our Lenten journey this week prepares us for the holiest of weeks when we will re-live the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus during the Triduum A gradual platform leads us to this climax when the grain of wheat is buried but rises into new life. The pattern of the past weeks since Ash Wednesday has been to bury that grain, those things that separate us from each other and Christ, so that we might see new life in our own souls. In our work as Marists, be we parents, educators, or business people, we sow, sow, sow, and in faith trust that those seeds will break through the earth and produce fruit. It is a rare gift to see the actual fruit, but when we do, how reaffirming it is, how reassuring that our labor has not been in vain. Such was the Chicago experience this past weekend, when I had a chance to reconnect with young men who had been in our Contact Program in the '90's. It was a program of prayer, visits, events, and accompaniment that would enable graduates from our Marist schools to nurture a possible vocation to the brotherhood. In its initial years, it was quite effective, but as time went on, the program grew in numbers, but yielded fewer brothers, and finally, none, so it as dropped. But I had a chance to see what effect the program DID have: a profound love of Marist Spirituality which became integrated fully in the lives of these men who now work with "the least favored" in public schools, implement our Marist standards and qualities, and thus spread the vision and charism of St. Marcellin into areas where the brothers cannot go and reach the very children for which we were founded. These men live the Marist virtues of humility, simplicity and modesty and educate through loving the students, as St. Marcellin instructed, and which they experienced in our Marist schools. It was most encouraging to witness, and provided motivation for continuing to walk the path of faith, that all that we do bears fruit. So, if we think that our Lenten practices are not doing what we hoped, let us not be discouraged or grow weary. In time we will see the fruits of our efforts.