Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Mar 2, 2025
On this last Sunday before Lent, parishes are preparing to send their catechumens, whom they discern ready for initiation, to their bishop for election next week. At that rite, the bishop will ask the catechumens’ godparents if they have seen evidence of conversion by the example of the catechumens’ lives.
In today’s Gospel, which continues the sermon on the plain, Jesus teaches, “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” (Lk 6:43–44).
Advent and Christmas remind us of the irreplaceable power of God’s intimacy.
To recognize if conversion has taken place in a person’s heart, we look not to the calendar or to some roster of classes attended or checklist of lessons learned. Rather, we look to the fruit of one’s life, the visible manifestations of the Spirit at work transforming a disciple more and more to be like the teacher, Jesus.
This discernment goes for us, the baptized, as well. As we get ready to enter into the Lenten season of conversion in the annual celebration of Jesus’s paschal mystery, we must discern how we will recognize the fruit of our Lenten disciplines. Let us pray that we will not go into Lent blindly but will look eagerly to bear good fruit by our lives that will give evidence of our true desire to imitate Christ in all things.
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