We who have been baptized have been plunged into the flowing waters of
Redemption. The Spirit invites us to live our Baptismal consecration
fully and deeply. For the desert-dwelling people of our spiritually
parched age, we are called to be an oasis where they can find life,
security, refreshment, beauty, fruitfulness and peace because like
trees planted beside the flowing
waters, we
yield the fruits which are always in
due season:
charity, mercy, justice and joy.
Ardent lover and imitator of the poor, crucified Christ, the Little Poor
Man rooted his life in the mystery of the Cross. To a spiritually
thirsty world, he was
like a tree
planted beside the flowing waters that yields its fruit in due season.
His early biographer tells how Francis' prayer even drew forth,
from a place where no water
flowed, a stream of
water to refresh the thirst of the peasant who had loaned him a donkey for
the long trek to a mountain hermitage. (cf
Friar Thomas of Celano,
THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE DESIRE OF A SOUL, 46)
The saints, the "just ones" of the New Dispensation, are those who draw
most deeply from the waters of their holy Baptism and become themselves
dispensers of the
flowing waters
of the Spirit who dwells within them.
Blessed is that religious, St. Francis
of Assisi wrote, who has no
pleasure and delight except in the most holy words and deeds of the Lord
and, with these, leads people to the love of God with gladness and joy.
ADMONITION 22
I have come not to abolish but to
fulfill the law, declared Jesus of Nazareth.
Matt. 5:17 For those who had eyes to
see and ears to hear, this young Rabbi did seem to be one
who pondered [God's] law day and
night. But our Lord offered even more. Not only did
He draw from the flowing waters of divine wisdom. He proclaimed that
from the hearts of those who believed in Him would flow living water,
and that they, like Him, would bear abundant fruit.
(cf John 7:38; 15:8)
Then came the stumbling block — the Cross. The law said plainly:
Cursed is he who dies on a tree.
Gal. 3:13; (cf Deut. 21:23)
But in the redemptive plan of God, the obedience of Christ transformed the
ignominious tree of death into the new Tree of Life, rooted in the water
flowing from the pierced Heart of Christ.
(cf John 19:34)
Since patristic times that life-giving stream has been seen as a symbol of
Baptism, the
flowing water which sanctifies the new
People of God.
For the desert-dwelling Israelites, the image of
a tree that is planted beside the
flowing waters spoke of many things: life,
security, refreshment, beauty, fruitfulness, peace. So meaningful was
this symbol to the ancient Jews that in the very first psalm of the
Psalter the inspired author used it to describe the saintly Hebrew — one
whose life was rooted in loving and living the Law of God.
Psalm 1
Blessed indeed is the man
who follows not the counsel of the wicked;
nor lingers in the way of sinners
nor sits in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is the law of the Lord
and who ponders His law day and night.
He is like a tree that is planted
beside the flowing waters,
that yields its fruit in due season
and whose leaves shall never fade;
and all that he does shall prosper.
A Not so are the wicked, not so!
For they like winnowed chaff
shall be driven away by the wind.
When the wicked are judged they shall not stand,
nor find room among those who are just;
for the Lord guards the way of the just
but the way of the wicked leads to doom.
The Flowing Waters
PART 18
