Peace and well
02/05/2021
Gospel of Saint John 15, 1-8
On this V Sunday of Easter, the liturgy presents us with the page of the Gospel of Saint John in which Jesus, speaking to the disciples during the Last Supper, exhorts them to remain united to him like branches to the vine. It is a really significant parable, because it expresses with great efficiency that the Christian life is a mystery of communion with Jesus: “He who abides in me and I in him,” says the Lord, “that one bears abundant fruit; because without me you can do nothing ”(Jn 15: 5). The secret of spiritual fruitfulness is union with God, a union that takes place above all in the Eucharist, rightly called also «Communion.»
The true vine of God, the true vine, is Jesus, who with his sacrifice of love gives us salvation, opens the way for us to be part of this vineyard. And as Christ remains in the love of God the Father, so the disciples, wisely pruned by the word of the Master (cf. Jn 15: 2-4), if they are deeply united to him, become fruitful branches that produce an abundant harvest . Saint Francis de Sales writes: “The branch united and articulated to the trunk bears fruit not by virtue of its own, but by virtue of the vine: we are united by charity to our Redeemer, as the members at the head; therefore good works, taking their value from it, deserve eternal life »
On the day of our Baptism, the Church grafts us as branches into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, into her own Person. From this root we receive the precious sap to participate in divine life. As disciples, we too, with the help of the shepherds of the Church, grow in the Lord’s vineyard united by his love. «If the fruit that we must produce is love, a precondition is precisely this» abiding «, which has to do deeply with that faith that does not depart from the Lord.»
Dear brothers and friends, each one of us is like a branch that only lives if he makes each day grow with prayer, with participation in the sacraments and with charity, his union with the Lord. And whoever loves Jesus, the true vine, produces fruits of faith for an abundant spiritual harvest. Let us pray to the Mother of God that we remain firmly grafted in Jesus and that all our action has its beginning and its fulfillment in him.
Fr. Antony Majeesh George Kallely, OFM.
