more and more fruit
"They caught such a great number of fish that their nets were at the breaking point." —Luke 5:6
Spiritual fruitfulness is based on obeying Jesus, especially when He commands us to do something beyond our human understanding. When we obey the Lord for no reason other than that He said so, we will see the glory of God (see Lk 5:5).
When we are spiritually fruitful, a war explodes. The Lord is calling us to overcome fear, repent of sin, and do greater things than we, or even Jesus, have done before (Jn 14:12). In contrast, the evil one, because we have become a threat to him, rages at us (see Rv 12:12). In this war, if we die to ourselves (Jn 12:24) and live in Jesus (Jn 15:5), we bear abundant and even greater fruit. This dynamic continues so that we become more and more fruitful and holy as we resist the temptations of the evil one. This is the pattern we see in the early Church as described in the Acts of the Apostles.
Obey Jesus; attack the devil; die to self; live in Him. Grow from "grace to grace" (Jn 1:16, our transl.) and "from glory to glory" (2 Cor 3:18).
Prayer: Father, may I bear increasingly abundant fruit.
Promise: "If any one of you thinks he is wise in a worldly way, he had better become a fool. In that way he will really be wise." —1 Cor 3:18
Praise: Pope Gregory had a great heart for the unity of all Christians. Still surviving today are 854 of his letters to the Eastern Churches, as he constantly tried to keep them in unity with the Church in Rome. St. Gregory, pray for the miracle of reunification of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
Nihil Obstat: Reverend Robert J. Buschmiller, February 17, 1998
Imprimatur: †Most Reverend Carl K. Moeddel, Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, March 25, 1998