By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. Just when the disciples were perhaps thinking that they had fulfilled all the requirements and conditions for discipleship, (“If you want to be my disciple, you must deny yourself; if you want to be my disciple, you must carry your cross”), Jesus adds another condition: bearing much fruit. And just like the previous condition(s), it is both a prerequisite and a consequence. It is a way of life. Not only is discipleship animate, but it is fecund as well. Discipleship is a call to action, an action that must be effective (read: that has effects). Discipleship is more than responding in the affirmative to Jesus’ call. Being animate, discipleship must be tended, watered, manured and carefully looked after.