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A gardening shortcut gone wrong reminded Nicole Berlucchi to stop cutting corners in her spiritual life.


We recently hosted our local high school’s theater cast party as our daughter was a part of the show and they needed a house with a yard to host a very large group of teens. With the weekend of the musical upon us, we found ourselves trying to spruce up the house a bit. I ran to the local garden center to get some potted flowers to drop into our front porch urns which had been sitting empty since the winter. 

With four kids, life is busy, so once home from the garden center, I took the pansies out of their plastic pots and dropped them into the urns, planning to get to adding the soil a bit later. They looked fine without any soil around them. You couldn’t tell I had simply dropped them in. 

However, once the party had passed, I still was negligent about getting soil into the pot and I soon had two urns filled with wilted flowers where you could most certainly see the gaps where I had failed to fill in with soil so the flowers would continue to flourish and welcome our front-door visitors. 

 

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I couldn’t help but thinking about life and some of the spiritual quick fixes I will try to use without putting any substance around it. Like, let me pray these prayers of deliverance, but not work on my hardness of heart. Or, let me pray the Surrender Novena, but continue to try to control everything. Or, let me attend daily Mass, but doing it more for the show of it rather than for the transformation of it. 

We can do things that look good, at least for a while, but if we aren’t rooting those spiritual efforts in actions and practices which will strengthen those prayers and allow them to grow a new way of living in you, then like my potted flowers, you will find those practices wilting away. 

When we practice habits like daily Mass or praying novenas or special prayers of healing, protection, or deliverance, going through the motions is not what is going to help us grow spiritually. What will help us thrive in these areas is if we pray these prayers with the intention of building a life that will hold up these prayers, a life that aligns with what these prayers are asking of God. 

Surrounding these prayers and holy habits with intentional action and open hearts will firmly plant these intentions so that their graces can spread like roots into every part of your life. They won’t be this extraneous thing unrelated to how you are living, but instead will be firmly secure and intertwined in your life. They won’t simply wilt away because of their disconnect from your life. They, instead, will help you thrive spiritually. 

 

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I’m going to be repotting some new plants in our front urns, and this time I plan to be sure to fill in the gaps with the soil so as not to repeat past mistakes. I’m hoping I can practice the same lessons in my spiritual life, surrounding prayer and spiritual habits with good soil so that lots of grace can take root as I strive to follow Jesus.  

 

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Copyright 2024 Nicole Berlucchi
Images: (center) copyright 2024 Nicole Berlucchi; others Canva