Good Fruit

Thank you, Rev Charles Onubogu, for today reminding listeners at Iglesia Catolica de  Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Half Moon Bay, CA, that: A good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree cannot do that. And, importantly, ‘Behavior is Determined by the Nature of a Thing.’ (Thomas Aquinas)

Dear Father, it is Trinity Sunday and you made my day!

So I lit three large candles to symbolically memorialize all family, friends and military whose lives bore witness to those truths, and to remind myself that bad behavior of powerful people is garbage, and comes from rotting roots. Then, as I left the church, I was happily thankful for the music resounding weekly now from  my brother Michael’s precious  piano.  What a perfect blessing!

But there was more: in the sunny parking lot, I saw you blessing a family’s car, drenching it with holy words and holy water. I did not intrude or interrupt that ritual, but determined to remedy the neglect of my own vehicle, secured last All Saints Day. It carries a favorite image of the  Madonna and Child, has been drenched by coastal fog, and washed by California rains, but an official blessing is overdue, as so often happens. So I will remember to find you for this task, and once again laud your insightful gifts.

God, please bless America! Enable goodness in all people within our shores and borders, from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans. Water the seedlings, refresh and reforest the scorched earth. Relegate the bad fruit to the compost heap of history. Wreak your havoc now, as we watch you speedily obliterate corrupt and greedy behaviors. God, bless America!