Today marks the 100th in this series of posts. It has been almost 2 years since I began this series, and I’ve covered a lot since then. However, trying to create new content new week about different passages has proven increasingly difficult. So for that reason I am going to suspend this series after this post. Perhaps I will take it up again at some point, who knows what the future will bring? Instead, I am going to try and integrate more scripture into my individual posts, along with more writing by various saints.
A common theme abounds in today’s post. I’m sure that my readers will be able to figure it out. We begin with the Song of Songs:
12Â A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
    a garden locked, a fountain sealed.
13Â Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates
    with all choicest fruits,
    henna with nard,
14Â nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
    with all trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes,
    with all chief spicesâ
15Â a garden fountain, a well of living water,
    and flowing streams from Lebanon.
(Song 4:12-15)
Then we move to the Book of Sirach:
19Â My child, keep sound the bloom of your youth,
    and do not give your strength to strangers.
20Â Seek a fertile field within the whole plain,
    and sow it with your own seed, trusting in your fine stock.
21Â So your offspring will prosper,
    and, having confidence in their good descent, will grow great.
(Sirach 26:19-21)
This moves us to the Prophet Isaiah:
Let me sing for my beloved
    my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
    on a very fertile hill.
2Â He dug it and cleared it of stones,
    and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
    and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
    but it yielded wild grapes.
(Isaiah 5:1-2)
Now we turn to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John:
âI am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2Â He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3Â You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Â Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5Â I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Â Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7Â If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8Â My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 9Â As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10Â If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Fatherâs commandments and abide in his love. 11Â I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
(John 15:1-11)
Finally, St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
22Â Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23Â For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24Â Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
25Â Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26Â in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27Â so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kindâyes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28Â In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29Â For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30Â because we are members of his body. 31Â âFor this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.â 32Â This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33Â Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.
(Ephesians 5:22-33)
Hopefully I will be able to tie some of these passages from scripture into a post I will write this week. As always, time is the constraint I can never quite escape.
