Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Parable of the Maple on Ascension Day

The Parable of the Maple on Ascension Day

Last updated on: May 24, 2020 at 12:35 pm by Mary Pezzulo

The Parable of the Maple on Ascension Day 2020-05-24T12:35:59-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I don’t know where the maple tree was, originally.

There must have been a venerable old maple tree on this property, at one time. There’s nothing left of it now– no stump, no indentation where a stump once was. But there are an irritating number of saplings.

Around the house, in all the cracks in the concrete, maple trees spring up every year. There’s one by the side door, one by the porch steps, one in the flowerbed, two or three in various places as I walk around the house with my gardening things. Every year we cut them back to the stump. Every time Michael mows, he cuts them back with the weed eater. But they return. The one by the porch steps had a thick crop of poison ivy coiled around it and climbing the porch when I moved in. I did what I’d never done in my life before and bought the smallest bottle of Roundup to spray the poison ivy– just the poison ivy, keeping it away from my garden and my dandelions. The chemical stench was awful. I felt like a murderer because I never use poison on weeds. The poison ivy shriveled and died back, and I ripped out the dead twigs wearing gloves. I felt sorry for the maple tree the poison ivy was entangled with. The tree also shriveled and died. But the next growing season, it was back.

There was a short, skinny maple sapling growing near the trunk of a scrubby cedar bush in the front yard when we moved in, over five years ago. It grew faster than I can describe, and now there’s a skinny tree shading the porch just as the cedar bush shades the porch. The seed pods, the “maple keys” or “whirlybirds” or “helicopters” that hold the seeds, fall and litter the porch roof; they blow into my window when I keep it open for air. I assume some of those will grow new saplings after we’ve moved out, and they’ll be the next tenant’s problem.

All of these saplings must have grown from maple keys dropped from an older maple tree that was somewhere nearby, but there’s no maple tree older than the upstart sapling by the porch anywhere I can see. There are sycamores and cedar bushes. There are magnolias. There are smelly walnuts. A neighbor down the block has a weeping willow that’s probably got its roots entangled in the storm drain by this time. But I don’t see a big maple.

This is the kind of thing I consider while I’m gardening.

Rosie was out in the wading pool all day yesterday. We threaded the garden hose from the kitchen sink, through the window over the compost heap and across the yard to fill her pool. Our neighbor with the perfect lawn sat on her back porch glaring at us, snarling under her breath as if we were contemptible pigs, and we are. There’s noting respectable about a Pezzulo. Pezzulos are the most ridiculous, tawdry, unsightly creatures the Lord ever created. Rosie frolicked and splashed in the cold water for hours in her ill-fitting bathing suit from last year. She played with squirt guns and ended up saving me a lot of work irrigating the vegetables. She made mud out of the bucket potato garden and nearly ruined the carrots.

I pulled weeds. I tended the cucumber seedlings a friend gave me and fussed over the squash. Only one of the squash seedlings I started is still alive– the other of the two that survived the frost keeled over for no reason after I put it in the ground, but the last one seems to be taking to the soil. I also found a single healthy squash for sale at Rural King and, after I’d abandoned all hope, I found one at Wal Mart. It’s not a fussy organic heirloom and it’s not the zucchini I wanted but a crookneck summer squash, but it will do.

I didn’t have beer for a slug trap, but I had an army of slugs attacking my kale, so I filled the traps with sugar water and yeast to see if it would do the trick. The yeast bubbled up like a volcano in slow motion.

There is no reason that plants should grow just because I put them in the ground. It’s almost against logic that they would. There are so many obstacles to their growing– slugs, weeds, inclement weather, rampaging children, angry neighbors, my own ineptness. But they do grow, and they feed me and my friends.

There is no reason a creature as helpless as a Mary Pezzulo still exists. I’ve had so many scrapes and brushes with death. But I am here, filling the pool, caring for my daughter, growing things.

I can’t see the reason why, but I am here.

Today, Sunday, in this diocese, we remember the ascension of Christ into Heaven. One minute Christ was here, standing outside the gate with the apostles, and He blessed them, and as He was blessing them, the blessing still ongoing, the blessing never coming to an end, He went up to Heaven and was taken from their sight, and the angels told the apostles not to look at the sky anymore.

He ascended as the Head of a Body that still remains, being drawn up into Heaven, part of it still on Earth but not of the earth. That Body is the Church. She is a painful, messy, broken Body, a Body who doesn’t look viable. So many members of the Body have become traitors and attacked the other Members until Christ is in agonizing pain, but the Body remains, and the Body is somehow still alive, and we believe through the virtue of hope that any of us who truly wants to follow Christ will eventually arrive in Heaven where He went.

We believe that, somehow, He also remains present with us and in us, always, even until the end of the age.

We can’t see the Tree anymore. It’s gone from our sight without a trace. There are plenty who would tell us that the Tree was only a story, and we’re fools to hold onto His memory. There are mocking detractors who shake their heads at the bleeding, autoimmune nightmare of a Body He left behind, and say that our hope is in vain.

But we know the Tree was once here. We know because we can see the army of scrawny, unsightly saplings rising up year after year, no matter what. No matter how much we are poisoned and cut down, we remain.

And I remain one Body with the Tree.

Image via Pixabay

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Interpretation of Scripture

Jesus

Meditation

mystery

Public face of Catholicism

Previous Post

May 23, 2020

The Jig Is Up: A Review of "AKA Jane Roe"

Next Post

May 26, 2020 A Requiem for a Hundred Thousand

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Why were the plagues significant against Egyptian beliefs?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Each plague targeted an Egyptian god They were meant to test Pharaoh’s patience Pharaoh had offended the Hebrew people They were random acts of nature