Spiritual Pruning

Imagine plants could speak, as if in a J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis story. Then, as we pruned them in the spring, they would cry out in pain, begging for mercy. After all, the annual snipping, cutting and trimming seems a painful and cruel punishment for them.

Yet, at the end of it, those same plants would thank us for the agony we made them endure. Because, as painful as pruning may be, it benefits the plants greatly. It fosters their health, fruitfulness and beauty. After their complaining, the rose bushes would blush and thank us for getting rid of those old, ugly, useless branches, and cleaning them up a bit.

Our Lord uses the image of pruning to describe our heavenly Father’s work: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does He prunes so that it bears more fruit” (Jn 15:1). As such, we should keep in mind the imaginary talking plants. They may serve as a good image of our souls.

If pruning brings some degree of suffering to a plant, it must also bring the same to us. But it also brings benefits. Perhaps if we understand the purpose of the Father’s pruning we will endure it more joyfully — and avail ourselves of it more often.

Our Father has, in short, the same purpose as any gardener: He prunes in order to produce spiritual health, fruitfulness and beauty. First, health. Pruning does away with the old, diseased and dead branches from a plant. God works the same in our souls. He seeks to remove the dead wood of sin and the diseased branches of vice so that our souls can enjoy greater health.

Second, fruitfulness. A gardener prunes to re-vitalize the plant, to encourage more growth and a greater yield of flowers or fruits. Our heavenly Father treats us in the same way. If a branch does bear fruit “he prunes (it) so that it bears more fruit.” Now this seems like a cruel thing. If a branch — that is, a soul — bears fruit, why not let it be? Why submit it to the pain of pruning? Because our heavenly Father knows that only by this pruning do we grow more and produce more. Just as an athlete becomes flabby and soft without a challenge or workout, so also the soul atrophies unless the vine grower takes away a few branches.

Finally, beauty. Those nice, orderly, attractive bushes and trees — they only attain their beauty by way of pruning. If your boxwood, azalea or rose bush rebelled and refused to submit to a cut here and a snip there, then it would soon become just an overgrown, untamed plant. So also our souls need pruning in order to have that good order that makes them beautiful. Without the pruning they go wild.

How, then, do we allow the vine grower to accomplish this pruning of our souls? In general, we need only accept the crosses and sacrifices that God, in His providence, gives and asks of us. Those little difficulties and inconveniences we encounter every day are so many cuts and snips to prune us. When we bear them with patience and charity they encourage growth and we bear fruit.

Unlike plants, however, we can participate in this spiritual pruning by cutting out things ourselves. We know what we can do without — what possessions, activities or relationships have become as so much spiritual dead wood and need to be cut out of our lives. We should ask the divine Gardener to prune these things from us, so that we can grow as He desires. And then we ourselves, having asked His help, should cut them from ourselves so that we can attain greater health, fruitfulness and beauty.

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Father Paul Scalia was born Dec. 26, 1970 in Charlottesville, Va. On Oct. 5, 1995 he was ordained a Deacon at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City-State. On May 18, 1996 he was ordained a priest at St. Thomas More Cathedral in Arlington. He received his B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., in 1992, his STB from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1995, and his M.A. from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1996.

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