 In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sayings of light and love, number five. Whoever wants to stand alone without the support of a master and guide will be like a tree that stands alone in a field without a proprietor. No matter how much the tree bears, passers by will pick the fruit before it ripens. So what is John of the Cross talking about here? First, he says, without the support of a master, what he means is a spiritual director, someone or a spiritual mentor or spiritual, you know, somebody who can guide us spiritually and help us to walk the narrow way to produce the good fruit that God wants to produce in us. And St. John of the Cross says whoever wants to stand alone, which gives you a picture of somebody who's vulnerable, who is not with care or support or aid, and if you think his context as always were, we're on the narrow way, we're on this very difficult path, and anyone who wants to do that alone without the support of someone else, helping them to see their weaknesses, helping them to overcome those things which inhibit the grace of God, helping them to see how to, or understand how to develop virtue, how to pray, how to grow spiritually, is alone and like a person who has a fruit tree, right, or field that's a tree that's bearing fruit, but the fruit that emerges never fully comes to fruition. It never becomes fruit that the person can take advantage of. So a little pre-emergent fruit that's not fully ripe might occur, might develop and then be seen by the enemy, which is the person who, as a passer by, it reminds us a little bit of the parable of the sower and the seeds that fall on rocky ground and the birds come to get them, the demons come and remove the good seed that could have been permeated the soul and grown up in the soul. Similarly here, the passers by the enemy of our soul who seeks to thwart the full blossoming of the fruit that comes that would then bear all of the nutrients that fruit brings to help us to grow when they're ripe. So someone without a spiritual director will be stunted in their spiritual growth, will not, the fruit that they could produce will only emerge minimally and then it will be stolen away by the enemy before it comes to be ripe and fully nutritious and edible and all of that. So John obviously values spiritual direction very much as does anyone who understands the challenges of knowing ourselves, the problem of the, that because of concupiscence in our own design we have an infinite capacity for self-delusion so we need people around us who can help us to see when we're not seeing right and to walk the narrow way and people who know the way up the narrow way, you know, who've walked a little further than we are and can guide us and help us avoid the wiles of the enemy in our own flesh. So may you, one, hang out with holy friends that can help a lot, regularly study the interior life with holy friends. If you can't find a director, at least do that. Meet once a week, every other week around a good book on the interior life. Find a spiritual companion, mentor, director from the various schools out there. If you, you can look at seekdirection.app to find a director, which is a good source or our own school, Heart of Christ. But whatever you do, recognize, know this one thing that St. John of the Cross is trying to get across to us and that is that as St. Catherine of Siena revealed the fathers, the father through her revealed that we are designed to be insufficient in ourselves to get to heaven. Other saints have said there are graces that can and will only be given through spiritual direction or that kind of relationship in that realm of relationship that God wants to give us so that our fruit will come to full, full ripeness, full of nutrition and fully able to support us and those around us. May this be so with you and may Jesus Christ be praised now and forever.