Parenting to Build Fruitful Faith

My green thumb was recently activated when a friend offered me a punnet of tomato seedlings. I got to work preparing the garden bed, setting up a fence to deter my vegetarian dog, and buying some mulch to help with the weeds. I spaced out the little green shoots, then gave them a good watering and let them be. 

A few weeks later my friend asked how they were going and how often I had been watering them. “Once a week,” I replied, as a quick Google search had instructed. “No, mate, they need a drink every second day if you want big juicy tomatoes.”  

I remember thinking that daily watering was going to be a pain because I didn’t have a watering system and would need to do it by hand, but I was determined to give it a go. 

As the weeks went by, I experimented with different times to squeeze watering into my daily routine. Sometimes before or after my morning run, while sipping my morning coffee, during work breaks, and late in the evenings. I gradually became grateful for these regular 5 – 10 minutes spent in the garden, tending to stray limbs, removing the odd weed, and replenishing the growing plants with water. 

Tending Relationships

It occurred to me that the same regular watering required for juicy produce is also necessary in my relationships, by way of attention, care, and love. My family needs daily watering, once a week is not sufficient to produce a full harvest. Yes, we can manage through the daily grind and fall over the finishing line on the weekend, but we also need that regular nourishment to thrive.

Family schedules are busy, so creativity is essential for the watering of relationships. We can seize the moment in the car, via text message, preparing a meal, cleaning up, or at play. These regular drops of love nourish the soul and produce an attentive, other-focussed way of being. Scripture reminds us that Jesus also took this approach with his disciples, seizing the ordinary events of life and turning them into moments of encounter and nurture. 

Life-Giving Water

This summer was particularly wet, so I found myself not needing to water my garden as often as I’d been instructed. At these times, I was reminded that whilst my loved ones need regular watering and attention from me, they also have other sources of nourishment. Like roots running below the surface, our personal relationship with God taps into life-giving water (John 4:4–26).

Whilst Mass offers us time to soak up the Word of God, to pray together, to meet Jesus in the Eucharist, and connect with our faith community, this alone won’t produce “fruit that will last” (John 15).

We do not equate our experience of God with the moments of prayer or the reference to “sacred places”. We experience God’s love every moment of our life like Champagnat did. For us, our family, work activities, social relations, and involvement in the world have a sacramental value. They are privileged spaces of communion with God. At the same time, we express a spiritual depth that underlies day-to-day life, and by doing so we give witness to Jesus and his Gospel. (Being A Lay Marist)

Jesus told His disciples that their faith required a response and instructed them to ‘go’ and “love one another” on a daily basis and in doing so, they will bear much fruit. That’s also our call, to be deeply known, loved, and watered by God and then to go out and share that life-giving water with all those we encounter.

Where can you ‘water your relationships’ a bit more regularly? How are you being watered in your relationships and faith? What fruit are you producing?