Want to know why I chose to name my blog Fruitful Fiat? Well, here goes…

Everyone is familiar with one of God’s earliest commands in the bible: “Be fruitful and multiply!” Easy enough, right? In fact, for some, this is so easy that it happens on accident!

Not the case for me! So where does this leave a barren woman like myself? Am I simply not fruitful?

Being raised in the Catholic Church where large families are praised and in a society where it is assumed that procreation should come easy, it felt like a slap in the face initially when “Be fruitful and multiply” did not happen for me, I felt like either I wasn’t meeting God’s expectations or God simply wasn’t blessing me.

It wasn’t until I took a more careful look at God’s Word that I discovered His call to be fruitful encompasses way more than simply bringing offspring into the world.

In the past few years through the trials of infertility, Dan and I were so focused on the end goal of having a baby what we did not realize how God was working on us to bear fruit in other ways. While certainly one of the most beautiful ways of being fruitful is through childbearing (and rearing!), fruitfulness is not limited to these things.

In fact, most of the time where fruitfulness is brought up in Sacred Scripture, it has nothing to do with having children at all and everything to do with growing in faith and virtue and sharing one’s gifts with the world.

Take Jeremiah 17: 7-9. “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord; the Lord will be their trust. They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green: in the year of drought, it shows no distress, but still produces fruit.“

Or take the parable of the sower. “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” Mt 13: 3-8

Jesus comes back to this parable a little later and emphasizes this to his disciples, “The seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit …” Mt 13: 23.

Or this from Colossians 1:10. “To live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God.”

Phew! Fruitfulness goes way deeper than human reproduction. I can bear fruit in how I love my husband, my family, my neighbor, my co-workers, and my patients as an occupational therapist. I can bear fruit in how I choose to be generous with my time, talents, and gifts. In fact, as a Christian, I am 100% called first and foremost to bear fruit in these ways.

Without diminishing the miracle of the fruitfulness of new human life, I am a bit relieved to know that I am capable of bearing fruit for God regardless of my fertility status!

Now as for the Fiat part? This Latin word became a part of my vocabulary only in the last few years as I’ve grown to learn about and love the Mother of God.

Fiat was Mary’s “Yes” to the Lord in response to the greeting by the angel Gabriel with the invitation to bear the Incarnate Son of God in her womb and take on a life of holy sacrifice. She said, “Let it be done according to Your Will” and this was her Fiat (Luke 1:38).

At first glance, it may seem that Mary jumped right on the bandwagon. But if you really read it word for word, Scripture reveals that Mary “was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be” (Luke 1:29). Even Mary was a bit perplexed at the request to follow God’s path!

It’s easy to chalk up Fiat to be only the call of Mary, but that’s not so. It would be wise of us to try to imitate the holiest and most blessed of all women, even if we will never come close to replicating her beauty. We are all called to a smaller fiat. We are all called to follow God’s will very closely in our lives — even to the point of making us “greatly troubled” and uncomfortable.

I recall how many times God asks us to pray for His will be done.

It’s in the prayer that Jesus taught us, the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy Will be Done…” We pray this together as a universal Church at every Mass. Every time we pray the rosary, we pray the Lord’s Prayer before each decade and that’s five times we pray “Thy Will be done.”

God must really desire His will be done! That must mean something! It must require something of us. Even if we don’t understand exactly what He is asking from us, we should pray about it and our very life breath should be fiat.

Put the two together and there you have it; Fruitful Fiat. The aim of my writings and more importantly, the aim of my life, is to be fruitful in my fiat. It’s an ongoing kind of thing, a conversion of heart, that requires a lot of prayer, discernment, and following the promptings of the Spirit. No small feat and lots of stumbling is guaranteed along the way, but no one said it was going to be easy!

I am convinced Fruitful Fiat is the only way. And I am convinced you can’t have one without the other. You can’t be fruitful without the fiat. And you can’t have the fiat without bearing much fruit.