Making sense of the 'Fruit of our lips"

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020423.cfm
Hebrews 13:15-17, 20-21
Psalms 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
Mark 6:30-34

Brothers and sisters:
Through Jesus, let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise,
that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.
(Hebrews 13:15)

Scripture commentaries, sensing the intention of the Book of Hebrews author, give a unanimous nod to Hosea. 

Take with you words,
and return to the LORD;
Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,
and take what is good.
Let us offer the fruit of our lips. 
(Hosea 14:3)

The fruit of our lips. It’s an odd notion to us moderns. The idiom means “confession,” an acknowledgment. There are many meanings here. By combining both confessing and acknowledging the name of Jesus as our Lord, we also “offer God a sacrifice of praise.” We admit our remorse for sinful behavior in the same breath as accepting Jesus’ forgiveness. 

It’s a tightly packed handful of everything from gratitude to voicing a report on the existence of the Lord. Woven into the expression of a “sacrifice of praise” is our report—a vocal, sincere expression almost legally binding act, hitching ourselves to God.

Hebrews stresses that we should do this continually. Monks, mystics, and holy religious have formed mini-prayers that guide the discipline of the Catholic practice of “fruit of our lips.” We have a long Christian history of phrases, Christ-centered mantras, If I can be so bold, that verbally roll across our tongues. The early Greek monastic traditions penned the most common rubric prayer, still present today. It predates the rosary.

Called the Jesus Prayer, it has only two verses. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,” said while inhaling, followed with “Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner” on the exhale.

Thomas Merton is famous for re-popularizing the Jesus Prayer. He brought the prayer into popularity by promising a meditative silence from repetitive prayer, called mouthing the “Hesychasm.”

Scoffers deride Catholics for our penchant to ritualize everything, even daily life. Obsessive, manic repetition of the Jesus prayer, or any prayer, probably isn’t healthy. Scrupulosity, an extremely obsessive behavior, is practically a disorder. However, doesn’t everything we do have its overwhelming extreme at one end and fearful skepticism at the other? 

I suggest that the scrupulosity and skepticism of some disciplines mark the efficiency of a properly acted-out behavior. Drinking wine, eating meat, and knocking on wood can all be taken too far. Those who prohibit these are not exactly healthy either.

If you’ve got a meaningful tradition, especially when Biblical, there’s good in that. While you may be developing a daily practice of the rosary, taking the advice to even just finger count one decade, you might consider the Jesus Prayer.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner”

Let us all offer the fruit of our lips.