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Tending the Vine – Your Spiritual Life

YOU ARE INVITED!
That has always been God’s way.

The spiritual life
           is as close as the ground beneath your feet,
           begins with what is in your heart,
           is as simple as speaking to God,
           is a great adventure!

God has entrusted to you an awesome gift and challenge: tending God’s own life, inside you. How are you tending this precious growth?


A WISDOM-TEACHER

ANGELA MERICI worked in a vineyard. She owned it, sold the grapes and paid the taxes. She knew first-hand how to tend its vines and maximize their produce. When she compared the spiritual life to growing vines, she knew what she was talking about. "Never cease to cultivate this vine that has been entrusted to you."

"Good beginnings are not enough," Angela said. Keep at it! She cultivated the soil to allow life-giving rain to reach the roots of her vines. What will it take to open our hearts to God’s grace?

She talked about "pruning" bad habits. She would not have let a diseased branch endanger the life of a healthy vine. Do we want to look at the patterns in our lives?

Angela would not have let her vines creep along the soil, the grapes getting moldy and insect-ridden. She knew how essential are the trellises that lift the vine to the sun and air. And she knew the necessity of spiritual practices, which are the structures that help a person grow healthy and fruitful.

The life we have received is ultimately meant to be shared. That is the fruit of the vine.


REFLECTING and DOING

1. What gives you life?
Name 7 or 8 things and date the last time you did them.

2. Take some time to talk to God about your plans and dreams and what is growing in your heart. Tend this quiet growth within.

3. The inner life we have received is the life we give.
How are you sharing it with others?

4. Where are the buds in your life?
Where does new life need to emerge?

5. Create a place in your home that opens you to beauty, and where you can tend and nourish your spirit.


SCRIPTURE PATHS

As you read Scripture, listen to what happens inside you. This may be the prompt coming from God’s Spirit inside your heart and spirit. Pay attention. Listen. Respond. Talk to God.

1)
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.... Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15:1-5).

2)
Let us go early to the vineyards, and see
          if the vines are in bloom,
If the buds have opened,
          if the pomegranates have blossomed;
There will I give you my love (Song of Songs 7:13).

3)
Then he took some seed of the land,
          and planted it in a seedbed;
A shoot by plentiful waters,
          like a willow he placed it,
To sprout and grow up a vine,
          dense and low-lying,
Its branches turned toward him,
          its roots lying under him.
Thus it became a vine, produced branches
          and put forth shoots....
In a fertile field by plentiful waters it was planted,
          to grow branches, bear fruit,
          and become a majestic vine (Ezekiel 17:5-8).

4)
I had planted you, a choice vine
          of fully tested stock;
How could you turn out obnoxious to me,
          a spurious vine?" (Jeremiah 2:21).

5)
Only God makes things grow (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:6).

Excerpts from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and Psalms Copyright (C) 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of the New American Bible may be reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

PRAYER

O garden-dweller,
          my friends are listening for your voice,
          let me hear it!
                                 Song of Songs 8:13

~

Help me see the abundance in my life.

~

Creator God, yours is the harvest and yours the vineyard. In your goodness give and preserve the fruits of the earth, so that each day there may be bread enough for all.

~

Let me see the task you’ve entrusted me with. Let me hear your call in my brothers and sisters, in the men and women I work with and those I live with.

~

Strengthen and support the weary and the burdened seeking new life.

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