“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit”
Fruit is an essential part of plant and animal life on earth, and it is a common image used to teach about spiritual life in the Scriptures.
My grandfather cultivated many fruit trees, and part of caring for them was pruning. Every year after the fruit was harvested, the apple, pear, and cherry trees were cut back, and sometimes rather severely. In fact, sometimes most of the branches were cut and it looked like only stumps were left. But those trees put out new branches every year and there was always an abundance of good fruit. When my grandfather’s health became too poor to care for his trees, they didn’t get annual pruning. They grew larger, but something else happened: over just a few years, their fruit yield was smaller, less, and more bitter. Without annual pruning, they no longer bore good fruit.
If penance is treated as an end in itself, it can become disordered self-harm. If penitential practices are taught but not the reason for them, then the conclusion many people draw is that penance is a kind of self-punishment for sins. That doesn’t make sense on a number of levels, and I think the widespread abandonment of penitential practices in recent years is a response to the perceived disorder of self-inflicted punishment. If that is why voluntary penance is practiced, it is right to reject it.
I think a better way to understand penance is like pruning fruit trees. We can bear better and more abundant spiritual fruit with the pruning of humility. Penitential practices are above all a reminder of our need for God, that we cannot “live by bread alone.” They also build the discipline needed to grow in obedience to God and to love and serve God and neighbor well. They are also an expression of sorrow for sins and, crucially, our desire to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.
As we begin the Season of Lent this week with its focus on intensified prayer, fasting and abstinence, and the works of mercy, remember the reason for voluntary penance: God loves you and wants you to be happy, and a season of pruning and death to self proceeds a season of new life and abundant fruit.
-Fr. Nate
