Bearing Spiritual Fruit: Less is More

“Many years ago when I was young, I lived out in Canton Township, (before all the subdivisions came,) and it was still the sweet corn capital of Michigan. My mother would put in two large gardens: one close to the house and one toward the back of the field. The one in the back of the fields was where she had all of her vines, all of her cucumbers, all of her musk melons, cantaloupes, squashes and pumpkins. And when my mother planted, she planted every seed. She packed nine, ten, 11 seeds onto every one of those hills.

And of course, she would draft my sisters and me to help her in the garden. Helping was translated as weeding. I tell you, the first tool I learned to operate was a hoe, and we learned to read well. My mother also had a marvelous tradition, which I highly recommend, where we went to the Wayne Westland Library every Saturday afternoon, and she encouraged us to check out books. I was like nine or ten at the time, and I remember checking a book out because they had a big children’s section. It was called “A Children’s Guide to Gardening.” It had lots of pictures and things like that. So I went and checked the book out, came home and I was reading it.

It [the book] said that you should only have three plants per hill when you’re growing vines like pumpkins or cucumbers or musk melons, because this way, every plant will get enough water, the roots will be able to expand, and you’ll have a great harvest. If you have too many plants in the hill, they’ll crowd each other out, and while you have more plants, you’ll get less fruit.

So on my own, without consulting my mother, I went to the back of that field and I pulled out all the plants from all of those hills, leaving only three plants per hill. My mother had words I can’t say in church. She tried to replant the ones I pulled up, but by then it was too late and she was disappointed…until the end of August, when she had a record number of cucumbers, a record number of musk melons, and a record number of squash.

Our vines never looked so big. They never looked so good and she never had such big crops! Now, you would think that this would be the point where I’d share with you that my mother said, ‘Son, I am sorry for those words, and you’re a good son.’

And you’d be wrong.

But, I’ll tell you what. The following year, when she planted that garden back there, she put three cucumber seeds, three pumpkin seeds, and three squash seeds into the hill.

Less is more, and if you’re going to bear spiritual fruit, I recommend this.

Less is more.

And this is what I mean: 28 years now, I have been with you as your pastor, and I’ve gotten to know a lot of people here spirituality. A lot of people try to cram a lot of stuff into a short period of time, spiritually. They’ll have a set amount of time and they’ll try to do three or four rosaries. They’ll try to do all these novenas, scriptural, reflective readings; they try to get it all in. They have a stack of stuff. I’ve seen them bring it to the church before and after Mass, daily Mass, and just try to get it all in in there in a certain amount of time.

This is what I would recommend: keep the timing the same, but only do a few things well. Instead of trying to do three or four rosaries, do one. But do it slowly and reflect on the prayers and mysteries as you say them. If you’re doing a whole bunch of novenas, pick one or two and then do the novena slowly.

Reflect upon the message and the virtue that it is trying to enhance in your life, whether it’s the virtue of mercy, patience, or compassion, so that you can really work on that. It’ll be the same amount of time, but you’ll find that by doing a few things, you will see that your spirituality will start growing. And that is the method by which you will grow and bear much fruit.