Wednesday – 12th Week in Ordinary Time   

Gospel – Matthew 7: 15-20

Bad Fruit!

Mt. Carmel, Galilee

We did some grocery shopping the other day, normal stuff – milk, eggs, zucchini(of course) butter, potatoes and strawberries.  A few days later we opened the container of strawberries and they had already gone bad!  They certainly looked fine when we bought them but all it took was one spoiled berry (that we couldn’t see) to spoil the whole package.  Yuck!  We thought they were all good to eat but we were wrong.  All it takes is one bad apple (strawberry)!

It happens that way with friends sometimes too, unfortunately!  That one friend we confided in, trusted in, shared our deepest secrets, and valued their advice and counsel and then they turn around and bad-mouth us behind our back and betray our confidences.  That person we considered a good friend turned out to be false! 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus cautions us to be wary of bad fruit and false prophets.  We should be able to recognize those who are false!  They tell us what we want to hear and not what we need to hear!  They may preach the Good News but they do not live it out in their daily life. 

True prophets inspire us by their witness and their wisdom. They challenge us to work toward a deeper relationship with God and with each other.  They challenge us to be on our guard against those false prophets who promise a quick and easy fix and they inspire us to bear good fruit of faith and love.  There are plenty of false prophets in the world, people who preach the Good News with words but fail to live it!  We will recognize them by their actions!  Let’s make that our reminder for the day!  We are all called to preach the Good News, not only in our words but in our actions!

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