The Fruit: The Mystical Name of the Messiah

 

Today, the reading from the handbook dealt with the theme of the Vexillum, the standard of the Legion of Mary and its specific design. This reading highlights the close relationship between the Most Holy Mother of God and the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, Who overshadows (that is, indwells) the Mother of God, just as God filled the Jerusalem Temple under the Old Law. The Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church are unanimous in reassuring us that divine indwelling is not for Our Lady alone, but it is for all of us in due proportion. It goes without saying that none can filled as perfectly with God as the very Temple of God, the Mother, from whom He was born in Bethlehem, but each of us is to strive with all our might for a more and more perfect union with our God. We are to labor with resolution to become those “logs in the fire,” which several of the Fathers of the Church have used as illustrations of union.

In the Second Hymn on the Nativity, Our Father Among the Saints Ephrem the Syrian gives us another illustration of this reality that is so central to our faith. In this hymn, as in so many others, Ephrem gives to the Messiah a mystical name that is based on a wealth of Scriptural references. This is one instance in which we can fully appreciate the saint’s theology, as well as the theology of the entire Syriac Church, which his life and writings were so critical in forming. Whereas, the Greek Church would come to create a theology based on philosophical reasoning and logical debate, the Syriac Fathers, and most especially Ephrem, fathered a Church that sees poetry as the basis of reality. Since God is a poet and His creation is the most sublime poetry, knowledge of His Creation and Self-Revelation can only be expressed in poetry. For this reason, returning to our subject, the Messiah has a mystical name. He is called Fruit. This name is based on several passages from the Old Testament. For example, the Prophet Isaiah tells King Hezekiah: “Here is a sign of what will happen. This year and the next you will have only wild grain to eat, but the following year you will be able to plant grain and harvest it, and plant vines and grapes. Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce Fruit.” And Psalm 79:15: “O God, come and save this grapevine that you planted, this vine you made grow so strong!” As well as the prophecy in Ezekiel 47:12: On each bank of the stream all kinds of trees will grow to provide food. Their leaves will never wither, and they will never stop bearing fruit. They will have fresh fruit ever month, because they are watered by the stream that flows from the Sanctuary.” Thus, in the Second Hymn on the Nativity, Ephrem uses this mystical name of the Messiah. He says, “Blessed be the Fruit that lowered Himself to our famished state!”

So, why is “Fruit” Ephrem’s mystical name for the Messiah? Well, we observe that many, many times in the Gospels the Lord refers to righteous people as good trees that produce good fruit. In making these many statements, the Lord Jesus is hearkening back to what He revealed to King David in Psalm, namely that righteous people “shall be like trees that grow beside a stream that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up, but in everything they prosper.” Ephrem goes a step further in his interpretation of these passages. When good people are spoken of as trees yielding fruit, it is in so far as the Holy Spirit is dwelling within them, conforming them to Christ and thus Christ, the Fruit, is seen in their deeds.

Ephrem even goes further in explicating this theme. Towards the end of the hymn he adds, “Glory to Him, Who never felt the need of our praising Him, yet felt the need to be kind to us and thirsted to love us. Thus, He asks us to give to Him, but He longs to give to us. His Fruit was mingled with us men, that in Him we might come nigh to Him, Who condescended to us. By the Fruit of His stem He grafted us into His Tree. Let us praise Him that prevailed and gave us life by His stripes! Praise we Him that took away the curse by His thorns! Praise we Him that put death to death by His dying!”

This Fruit, the Christ, the Messiah, has grafted us into His Tree, that is, into the Holy and Life-Giving Cross. This is the way that divine indwelling and union with God happens. The Spirit that proceeds from the Father and the Son comes to dwell within us and begins the process of conforming us to Christ. If we cooperate with the Spirit’s work, eventually the Fruit, the is, Christ Himself, will appear “on our outside,” in our deeds, witnessing to our having been grafted in. The Most Holy Mother of God shows us the perfection of this whole process, but it is for all of us to share in the proportion that God wills and that we are willing.