Growing up in a rural agrarian family, my eight siblings and I were parents raised nine of us very close to nature. We had Almost everything for all our food was produced at home, except for salt and sugar. Those were the only items my father would buy from the market...
We had a variety of foods: various fruits, vegetables, rice, cassava, yams, goat milk, cow milk, buffalo milk, chickens, ducks, and rabbits. We all learned to work in the field, till the land, and graze the animals.
My family has a long line of green thumbs, particularly my eldest brother. What attracted me most was the way he grafted plants.
He would take cuttings from the best quality rubber trees and fruit trees and graft them into strong roots.
We still have one of those the mango trees he grafted, which has continued to produce mangos almost throughout the whole year. He would often experiment with grafting one plant to the other, but he had to know his trees because not all trees are compatible.
All plants are not compatible with the other. That is why Jesus asked, "Do you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?" He says, "by their fruits, you will know them."
Our first reading today, tells us that God made a covenant with Abraham. A covenant which our Responsorial Psalm tells us is binding for a thousand generations.
St. Paul in several of his letters to Gentile Christians tells us that we are like wild olive branches which have been grafted into God’s special olive root because we have believed in Christ. So now we also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children.
When God established his covenant with Abraham, Abraham trusted God fully. And God blessed him and his descendants. Today’s psalm reminds us, “The Lord remembers his covenant forever.” The psalmist sings, “make known the among the nations his deeds.”
Are we grafted in because we believe in Jesus? Do we see ourselves and our families as part of the covenant? Are we ready to make God’s name known to others?
.jpg "Father Pinto Paul, C.S.C.")