The Kingdom and Christ's Humility

Jesus, whose greatness cannot be measured, is well compared to an apple tree, if we think only of his littleness, that is of his humility though that also never finds a measure.  The comparison holds because the apple tree, though very much inferior to the trees of the wood in height, is much more fruitful than they.  It is in this sense that the kingdom of heaven is compared to a grain of mustard seed, which is smaller than other seeds, but when sown, grows into a tree, "so that all the birds of the air come and sit in its branches."  Christ is the fruit-bearing tree and the mustard tree, since he refreshes us with life and pricks us with health, sweet to taste and pleasantly pungent.

"The apple tree" is "among the trees of the wood," for the trees even of paradise must draw life and nourishment from him, the one sole tree of life that was in the midst of paradise.  If it were not for him the trees of the wood would be parched trees.  From the countless multitude of angels and holy men, the Lord has planted a vast and very lovely paradise, a garden full of delight, but only for those who dwell there.  Yet if the tree of life that is Christ Jesus, were not to provide that multitude with the fruitfulness of his humility, then it would lose much of its loveliness and all of its fertility.

John of Ford

-John of Ford (1214) was the abbot of a Cistercian monastery in southwest England.