Feast of the Holy Trinity Gospel Reflection

May 31^st 2015.  Feast of the Holy Trinity

GOSPEL Matthew 28:16-20

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL Matthew 28:16-20

The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . .  The Feast of the Holy Trinity is not a time to reflect abstractly on a difficult theological doctrine; it is a celebration of a vibrant relationship with God. This feast proclaims two things to us: firstly, we are called to live an intimate, vibrant and concrete relationship with Father, Son and Spirit here on this earth. Secondly, the vibrancy of the relationship we have with the Trinity is manifested by our capacity to transmit it to others. We are capable of communicating this way of life and passing it on to the extent that the relationship is real in our hearts. In the Gospel, Jesus sends us forth to baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. The word “baptize” means “to immerse”. Each of us must be immersed in God. We must be disciples who live an intimate relationship of obedience, trust and abandonment to our Master. If we are immersed in God, then it becomes easy for us to follow Jesus’ command and go out to the whole world and immerse others in God. A teacher is dry and uninspiring when he teaches something abstract and purely theoretical. But a teacher who loves his subject, who lives what he teaches, has the capacity to communicate in an infectious and inspiring way. This is what we are called to do – firstly immerse ourselves in the life of the Trinity and secondly go out and immerse the whole world.

This is not a feast about a theologically abstract notion: it is a celebration of a relationship that brings happiness in the concrete here and now.

The feast of the Holy Trinity is not a feast about a theological abstraction but a celebration of our knowledge and experience of God. We do not deduce God - we encounter him. He has been revealed to us in a person; in everyday things we have the potential to come to an intimate knowledge of him. The first reading speaks of a God who has revealed himself to his chosen people. This God has manifested himself in signs and wonders, in battles with outstretched arm. These anthropomorphic descriptions of God demonstrate that he is a Lord who reveals himself to us in ways that we can understand. He is a God who is both up in heaven and operative down here on earth. There is no other God, and Moses exhorts the people to obey him by keeping his commandments. Interestingly, Moses does not say that the people are to honour God because his divine majesty merits the subservience of all people to him. Rather, by following his commandments they, and their children, will enter into a state of happiness. We care for our children more than we care for ourselves, so this point is very important. God asks for the obedience of the Israelites so that they and their children will live in happiness, will prosper in the land that the Lord has given them. They will be enabled to already taste the happiness of eternity here and now on earth. The God who lives in heaven can be experienced here on earth as the fount and principle of happiness.

Some of the disciples hesitate in bowing down before the Lord. This is how we are made. The measure of our unhappiness is the measure of how much we hold back from abandoning ourselves to God.

How do we live in this state of happiness on earth? The Gospel is from the last few lines of Matthew. Jesus’ appears to his disciples in Galilee upon the mountain where he himself had imparted to them many of his teachings. The disciples prostrate themselves before Jesus, but some of them hesitate. What a curious thing is this persistence of weakness within us. We always hold something back from the Lord. It is hard for us to abandon ourselves to him completely. This is our state of poverty; this is how we are made. We are in a process of continual negotiation with the Lord. There is always something within us that remains unenlightened. Our unfulfilled happiness is always proportional to the portion of our heart that we hold back from God, to that portion of our heart that has given in to hesitation.

The power of Jesus is a power that is not simply terrestrial. It is a power to make heaven present on earth right now by forming relationships between disciples and God

Jesus proclaims his power. It is not the power of this earth which is in the dominion of Satan. The power of Jesus is that which unites heaven and earth. During the temptations in the Gospel of Luke, Satan declares that all power on earth has been given to him. This is a power that does not unite itself to heaven and is directed solely to the things here below. The power of Christ is of a different sort altogether, the power to unite heaven and earth, the power to use the things of earth in the service of heaven – as we say in the Our Father: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. As the Gospel passage makes clear, the power of Jesus is directed towards making disciples of all peoples. In the world there are disciples and there are people. The people are “self-made men” whose lives are lived in a self-referential way. Disciples, by contrast, live in relationship with their master. In Matthew’s Gospel, above all, Jesus is presented as the master who teaches. The disciple is not simply someone who listens to his teacher and leaves the relationship at this level. The disciple has an intimate relation with his master. In everything, he absorbs and learns and grows as a person. It is a wonderful thing to be a disciple and to have beautiful, novel, things revealed in every instant.

The Christian is one immersed in Father, Son and Spirit. This immersion is the foundation of his mission. When we are in intimate union with God, then we find it easy to transmit this union to others, forging relationships between them and God

The Christian, in fact, has a very special connection with his master. The Greek root for “baptism” means “to be immersed”. We are fully immersed in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in baptism, the sacrament that is the real centre of our Christian existence. The faith we profess involves being completely immersed in God, and then our Lord comes and immerses himself in us in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This mutual immersion makes us become a single entity. Heaven becomes present here on earth through our relationship with God. All of us experience heaven when we encounter a person who is immersed in God and God in him. The true disciple is fused with his master, has his master always with him in his heart. Such a disciple has the capacity to teach and pass on that which the master has entrusted to him. We are capable of teaching something when it is something that we truly live ourselves. If we try to teach people to do something using purely theoretical considerations, then we will have limited success. When I speak about something I love, I become very good at teaching that thing. I know the subject intimately and am able to describe its inner structure.

May 24^th 2015. PENTECOST SUNDAY

Gospel: John 15:26-27; 16:12-15

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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Gospel: John 15:26-27; 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples

‘When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness.
And you too will be witnesses, because you have been with me from the outset.

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.
But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth,
since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt;
and he will tell you of the things to come.
He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine.
Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said:
All he tells you will be taken from what is mine’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The first reading tells us how each visitor to Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost heard the Apostles’ words in his own native language. This is not a story about amazing linguistic gifts being bestowed on the Apostles! It is a story of how the Spirit of God gives each one of us the gift of being able to communicate heart to heart the story of the great works of God. The Gospel makes this clearer. Jesus tells us that he will send the Paraclete who will lead us into truth by taking from what belongs to Christ and revealing to us the things of the future. What does all of this mean? The Holy Spirit puts us into right relationship with the things of the future. When my future is unclear, then I can become easily anguished. If my marriage is in crisis then I can quickly fall into negativity and despair. The Holy Spirit puts me into a right relationship with the future because he reveals the hand of God in everything in my life. He tells me that God’s providence is working in everything and leading me to a future full of light and life. He encourages me to see the crisis in my marriage as a situation permitted by God so that I can enter into a deeper and more adult relationship with my spouse. In short, when I am illuminated by the Holy Spirit, I become serene, trustful and filled with hope. This capacity to discern the providence of God in everything confers on me the ability to communicate heart to heart with others about the wonderful deeds of the Lord. I become a witness to Jesus. This is the goal of the spirit – to transform us into witnesses. We communicate little with abstract words and concepts. The Holy Spirit makes us communicators par excellence by transforming us into witnesses to the person of Christ.

The Pentecost capacity of the Apostles to speak to people who understand different languages is not a linguistic gift. The gift that the Spirit gives is the gift of communication.

Pentecost is the culminating event of Easter. Let us never forget that God’s goal is not simply Christ’s resurrection but our resurrection, our living a new way of life that is rooted in heaven. Pentecost is not just the end of the Easter Season, it is the goal of the Easter season when we become recipients of the life of God. The event of Pentecost is not described in the Gospels but in the Acts of the Apostles. The first reading each Sunday usually illuminates the Gospel. This Sunday the situation is reversed because the first reading describes the Pentecost event directly and the Gospel provides the Johannine interpretation of the event. The description in Acts from the first reading tells of this extraordinary experience of communication in which the barriers between different linguistic groups disappears. The diversity between peoples is not overcome by making everyone homogeneous; rather it is the capacity to communicate that overcomes the barriers. This group of people described in the passage do not attain the capacity to speak the same language, think the same thoughts and do the same things. What unites them is not bland uniformity but the activity of God. The Holy Spirit, who is ultimately love, gives this ability to make oneself understood.

We attain the gift of being able to communicate with others when we learn to speak of the things of God.

Everyone manages to understand in his own “native language” – what a beautiful expression! Our mother tongue is the one that is closest to our hearts, the language we learned as children and that is closest to our personal identity. The Apostles speak in their language and the hearer understands in the language that is closest to his heart. What is transmitted between the two is the news of the “great works of God”. The Gospel passage speaks of the gift of the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father. This Spirit witnesses to the truth and transforms the disciples into witnesses themselves. The Gospel goes on: “But when the Spirit of truth  comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come”. What are these things to come? First of all it is worth noting that when a person changes his relationship with the things of the future – when his future is illuminated with light so that he goes forward with faith, serenity and trust – this transforms his life completely since a person is his relationship with his future; every act he engages in is directed towards something. All of us are directed towards certain things that are coming our way. If my immediate or long-term future is illuminated by the activity of God, then I become serene. I am not filled with the anguish of someone who feels he is in a blind alley. I have a sense of transformation, beauty, novelty, surprise, discovery. But how do I attain this beautiful relationship with the future? The Gospel goes on: “He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine.” In the first reading we heard how the people in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost heard the great works of God being proclaimed in their native languages. The Gospel talks about the Holy Spirit taking from the things that belong to Jesus. The point is this: the language that communicates par excellence is that which is concerned with the things of God. We achieve illumination, desperate circumstances are transformed into hope, when I manage to see the providence of God in the happenings of my life; when I see the things of God hidden in the events that are going on around me. For example, when there is a crisis in a marriage, we can look on the situation and despair, or we can see the crisis as part of the process of growth, a stage that the Lord is permitting so that the spouses can learn to love each other in a deeper and more adult way. If we do not see the hand of God in that which happens, then situations become blind, empty and worrying. When, by contrast, we see design, wisdom, the love of love of God, the things that belong to Christ, in that which happens to us, then I attain the capacity to accept and welcome these things.

We communicate when we become witnesses to the person of Jesus. We communicate less well when we cease being witnesses and start to speak in abstract terms.

The Holy Spirit changes things from within. He makes me speak with conviction and light, gives me the capacity to show others how God is working in things. When I speak under the influence of the Holy Spirit, my listener begins to understand, begins to apprehend my words close to his heart. It is one thing to try to communicate Christ with concepts, but another thing altogether to take from the things that belong to Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit and apply them to the events of life. In this way we become witnesses. We can make enormous efforts to communicate norms or abstract thoughts, but to be a witness is to leave all these abstractions behind and bear witness to Jesus as a person. To illuminate someone’s intelligence is no substitute for speaking about the love of God. The Holy Spirit does not reveal the future to us in the sense of telling us the tedious details of events that will happen; rather the Spirit announces to us the wonderful fact that our future will be filled with the providence and activity of God.

May 17^th 2015.  Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord

Gospel: Mark 16:15-20

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Mark 16:15-20

Jesus showed himself to the Eleven, and said to them, ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.’

And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Ascension is one of the articles of the Creed and has immense significance for each one of us personally. All of our actions are directed towards goals. That is the sort of creatures that we are. But if the goals are false or illusory, then our lives are chaotic and meaningless. The Ascension of Jesus makes our true final goal crystal clear! Jesus is fully human and the Ascension tells us that his (and our) final goal is to be with the Father in heaven. How many false objectives pull us this way and that! We have wrong goals for our bodies, our intellects, our possessions and our relationships. The end result is that our lives are bland and without substance, or are chaotic and tragic. We are like sailors in a wild and desolate sea. We need a point of reference to orient our lives, and that point of reference is God the Father! All of our actions should be directed by a simple criterion: “Is this choice something that is compatible with heaven? Is this something that leads me to heaven?” The things of this world must never become ends in themselves. All of us are called to eternity! We have been designed for something that is greater than the universe itself.

The Ascension is not simply the triumphal going up of Jesus. It is a truth of dogma of immense significance for all of our lives

On Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Ascension. At first sight, this event might seem like the moment in which Jesus simply goes up to heaven and is glorified. But the Ascension is nothing less than the sixth article of the Creed. The Apostles’ Creed is a simpler and more ancient version than the Creed we recite at Mass. It is divided into twelve articles and one of these refers to Jesus’ ascension into heaven and taking his place at the right hand of the Father. The Ascension, therefore, is of comparable importance to the article which states: “I believe in God the Father Almighty”; or; “I believe in the Holy Spirit”. Its significance is especially underlined this year. Of the three-year liturgical cycle, it is this year that presents the Ascension event in a particularly forceful way. Both the first reading and the Gospel recount the story of how Jesus is raised from the earth and takes his place at the right hand of God.

All of our activities are directed towards goals. If the goals are illusory, then our lives are chaotic or lack substance. The Ascension tells us about our final goal

What does it mean to “ascend”? Why does the risen Lord ascend into heaven? What significance does this final event have in the terrestrial life of Jesus? The Gospel of John says: “Knowing that he had come from the Father and was returning to the Father . . .” And later the same Gospel says: “Knowing that the time had come to go to the Father . . .” After the resurrection, Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to the Father . .” The point is that this earth is not a final destination. Once we accept this fact, a lot of our problems are instantly eliminated. Often, the process of discernment regarding a particular issue involves clarifying its final goal. Where do these choices or initiatives lead us? In everything we do, we are beings that pursue goals; we are intentional creatures. But if our goal is a mistaken goal, then the fallout is dramatic. My life might be full of good things that are directed to a wrong end. Our bodies, our intellects, our resources and possessions can all be directed to goals that are distorted. If this is the case, then everything can become chaotic and disordered. We are capable of enduring great hardships for a goal that we consider worthwhile, but we can have difficulties remaining patient for five minutes when we are pursuing a goal that does not make sense to us. The final objective of our efforts has a determining influence on everything.

Jesus is fully human and reveals the final destination of our human nature. Our final destination is the Father! How illusory are the goals that we sometimes follow!

What we are celebrating this Sunday is really the finality of everything. Jesus reveals the true nature of humanity because, though he was God, he assumed human nature in a complete sense. Being fully human, he reveals the true final destination of humanity. The endpoint of our journey is God the Father. Our final homeland is in heaven. This earth cannot be regarded as a destination in itself. We are pilgrims on a journey and until we recognize this fact, we will have a distorted viewpoint on the things of this earth. Saint Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians asks us not to live our lives in a disordered way. We have need to be oriented in the right direction and this feast calls us to do just that. Navigators at sea use a sextant to orient themselves correctly with the stars in the wildest and most desolate waters. All of us have need to be oriented to the correct point of reference! This requires abandoning the deceptive goals and illusory points of reference in life. How many false ideas we encounter in our journey! How many wrong idols pull us this way and that, leading us nowhere, turning our existence into something bland and without substance! Our true goal is the call we have to eternity. This is the litmus test for everything in our lives that does not have the character of eternity. If Christ ascends to heaven, then I too am called to heaven. What truly counts in my life is that which counts in heaven. My acts in life must be guided by this criterion.

All of my actions must be guided by the criterion that my final destination is heaven!

The disciples in the Gospel passage from Mark are sent out to manifest the signs of this eternity to which we are called; the signs of that which goes beyond death, sickness and evil; signs that make present the eternal aspect of God. As Christians, we are all called to a life of actions that are valid and presentable even in heaven. Before doing something we should ask: “Will I be glad of this action or ashamed of it when I die?” This is a parameter that we should always keep in mind when it comes to serious decisions, but also for more ordinary ones. It is essential that we live in the manner of one who is heading towards heaven. Sometimes we observe people on their way to a celebration or to a sad event. We encounter people who have been waiting for a particular event for many years.  People are marked by the characteristics of that towards which they are heading. Christians are people who are on a journey towards heaven. They are a people on pilgrimage towards an encounter with the Father. In everything they do, they make a step on that journey, knowing that everything that Providence brings is not directed towards our lives here below but is oriented to making that transition to heaven. We must never turn the things of this life into absolutes! These things only serve to lead us towards the fullness of life. This world is too little for the hearts that we have been given! Each of us has been designed for something more immense, something that is larger than the universe itself.

May 10^th 2015. Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Gospel:   John 15:19-17

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

_______________________________________________________________

Don Fabio's homily follows the Gospel for Sunday

Gospel:   John 15:19-17

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.
This is my commandment:
love one another, as I have loved you.
A man can have no greater love
than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends,
if you do what I command you.
I shall not call you servants any more,
because a servant does not know
his master’s business; I call you friends,
because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last;
and then the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.
What I command you is to love one another.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary  . . . . The Gospel tells us that friendship with Jesus is the high-point of our relationship with him. Friendship is such a simple and human thing! But then Jesus says that we will be his friends only if we keep his commandments. What kind of friend places conditions on his friendship? How are we to make sense of this apparent absurdity? Don Fabio says that our friendship with Jesus only becomes real and concrete if we respond to Jesus in the same way that he acts towards us. And this makes sense. Imagine that we are in a room surrounded by fifty people who love us. If we love none of them in return, then we are really alone in that room. Friendship is only felt when it is a two-way thing. In the same way, there is no doubt that Jesus loves each one of us totally. But if we do not respond to his love in kind, then the life-giving relationship between him and us does not really get kick-started at all. It is essential that we do things for Jesus, that we stoke the relationship of friendship between us. Mother Teresa spent half of her time alone in prayer and the rest of her time helping the poor. It was from the time and space that she gave to God that she derived the energy and power to do marvellous things. This is the story of all the saints and it will also be our story! We must do things for Jesus, behave like friends towards him, devote time to him, have a secret and intimate relationship exclusively with him. Then we will remain in his love and experience his friendship in the fullest sense.

We are inclined to think that God saves in certain fixed ways, that the faith can only be lived according to certain formulae. But it is God that saves us, not the particular pathway that we hold dear!

Sunday’s liturgy presents us with a change in mentality of the early church that is documented in the Acts of the Apostles. The first believers in Jesus were Jewish. This didn’t happen by chance. Over many centuries the Lord prepared the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah, through figures like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Judges, and the prophets. Through this remarkable process of preparation, the Jewish people were made ready for the coming of God’s blessed Son. This fact led the early disciples of Jesus to think that only those who came from the rich Jewish tradition were capable of welcoming the Messiah. The surprising thing was that God intended his Spirit to be given also to the pagans. We are inclined to look at everything through our own limited conceptual schemes. We find it difficult to accept that God can bring his plan to fruition along pathways that we do not consider possible. St Paul struggled greatly against the mentality that it was still necessary to follow the observances of the Law in order to be pleasing to God. It took a monumental effort to convince people that God could work with people in different ways than the particular scheme that they held dear. All of us fall into this trap! Once we have a positive experience of the faith, we tend to make this particular expression of faith an absolute that we expect others to conform to. We become attached to certain modes of salvation, not recognizing that God has many others. It is God that saves us, not the pathway that we hold dear! We must not become fossilized in our ideas about salvation.

What God wants from us is not the fulfillment of certain precepts, but a relationship of genuine friendship

The Gospel tells us to remain in the love of the Father and the Son: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you”. This is not a fixed scheme or protocol, but a relation. In the very same total sense that the Father has loved Jesus, so Jesus loves us. Jesus remains in the Father’s love by observing his commandments. This is not a mechanical observation of laws and regulations, but living in a relationship with the Father. Here we enter into the most surprising aspect of this Gospel passage. Friendship is presented as the high-point of the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. What a strange thing! Friendship is such a simple and natural aspect of being human. It is possible to cultivate friendships with anyone.

What does Jesus mean when he says, “If you want to be my friend, do what I say”? Is he placing a condition on friendship?

But then Jesus says: “You are my friends if you keep my commandments”. What kind of relationship is this? A conditional friendship? Jesus is the one who gives himself to us gratuitously! At first sight this seems absurd, but from a different perspective we can enter into the beautiful sentiment expressed by this passage. Sometimes when a friendship is forming, both parties move at different speeds. One person opens up a little and then the other responds. But the real friendship begins for me on the day that I try to do something for the other person, actually putting myself out on their behalf for no ulterior motive. Then I begin to behave truly like a friend. The fact is that we do not really appreciate the love of Christ for us just from the fact that he loves us, full-stop. It is only when we respond to his love, that his love ceases to be a mere concept for us. It is when we try to mirror his love that it becomes a more concrete thing for us. Then we begin to appreciate his friendship and experience the depths of his love for us. Say that I am in the middle of fifty people who love me. If I love none of them in return, then I am alone. Similarly, if Christ loves me totally but I do not respond to his love, then the new life of Easter does not really get going in me at all. Christ makes demands on me, as all true friendships do. It is essential that I do things only for him, things that are directly uniquely at my relationship with him. Just think of the saints who achieved incredible things for others, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She dedicated herself to people who were in great poverty and close to death, but half of her time was dedicated to being completely alone with the Lord. The rule of her congregation prescribes that the sisters spend half of their time helping the needy and half of their time in prayer. She understood the need to donate time and space to God. From this intimacy with God springs the power and energy that is the hallmark of so many saints. The key to endeavor that does not become weary, that continues to be beautiful and full of life, is to do these secret things with God, as the Gospel of Matthew says. Friends are intimate with each other and share secrets. In the same way, we too must have that secret connection exclusively with Christ.

May 3^rd 2015.  Fifth Sunday of Easter

GOSPEL: John 15:1-8

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: John 15:1-8

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘I am the true vine,
and my Father is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that bears no fruit
he cuts away,
and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes
to make it bear even more.
You are pruned already,
by means of the word that I have spoken to you.
Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.
As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself,
but must remain part of the vine,
neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine,
you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me, with me in him,
bears fruit in plenty;
for cut off from me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me
is like a branch that has been thrown away
– he withers;
these branches are collected and thrown on the fire,
and they are burnt.
If you remain in me
and my words remain in you,
you may ask what you will
and you shall get it.
It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit, and then you will be my disciples.’

---

 The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Gospel tells us that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. If we are to have life, then we must remain attached to Jesus. The parable tells us that without Jesus we can do nothing! We tend to think that we can do quite a lot by ourselves, but the Gospel gives us the startling message that all of our apparently wonderful achievements have no lasting value if we are not rooted in Christ. But how are we to be rooted in Christ? The Gospel answers this clearly. We remain attached to Jesus if we keep his word in our hearts. Our hearts are filled with many other words, sterile, angry, bitter and sad words! The Father prunes us by eliminating these words from our hearts. To be “pure” means to be of one nature only, to be no longer duplicitous, to have only the words of Jesus in our hearts, and no other words. God has spoken a word to each of us personally. We are faithful to ourselves only if we are faithful to that word. We must allow God to purify us, to clear away the other words that lead nowhere. We must allow the word of Jesus to penetrate deep into our hearts and yield fruit that will last. In this way, the resurrection of the Lord will transform us from within.

Let our judgement not be influenced by the events of the past! God is doing something new with people and with history!

The first reading presents us with a figure who could easily go unnoticed in the Bible – Barnabas. He is the one who accepts Saul even though the other disciples feel that this previous persecutor of Christians must be a spy. Do we see people as being purely products of their past? Or do we allow that God’s initiative can transform a person? There are many saints of the church who had a questionable past. If we were to view them solely in terms of the people they were originally, or they things that they had done, then we would reject them altogether and miss the gifts of grace that had led to their complete transformation. St Francis of Assisi or St Ignatius of Loyola are just two example of great saints with a chequered past. Barnabas does not allow past events to colour his judgement and he takes the former persecutor, Saul, with him to the Apostles. Barnabas explains what has happened and becomes the custodian of this gift that the Church has received from God.

If we are to have authentic life, then we must be attached to the vine that is Christ. If we are not rooted in this vine, our achievements will have no lasting value.

The Gospel this Sunday tells us that life comes from God. It also tells us the road we must travel if we too are to have life in God. We must be the branches of the vine that is Jesus, a vine that is cultivated by the Father. The issue is not whether we are good, or bad, or talented, or disciplined: the issue is whether or not we remain attached to the vine. A branch cannot bear fruit unless it remains attached to the vine. One phrase in particular of this Gospel is frightening: “Whoever remains in me will bear much fruit. Without me you can do nothing.” We tend to think that we can do a lot of things by ourselves! Even those of us who consider ourselves Christians try to do a lot without Christ. And we interpret things and judge others from our own limited point of view, not from a viewpoint informed by an attachment to Christ. This phrase from Jesus – without me you can do nothing – is terrible, but it is profoundly true. So much of what we do has no lasting value. Many of our achievements cannot endure any robust testing from reality over time.

How do we draw life from Jesus? By keeping his word in our hearts.

“If you remain in me . . .”. Jesus says. How do we remain in him? How do we ensure that the life we have is a life that comes from him, the life of the Resurrection, the life that comes from his pardon? The things that we possess are the things that spring from the flesh. These can be dignified too, in their own way, but they do not have eternity within them.  Jesus says, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you . .” These two things are completely identifiable.  I will remain in the vine that is Jesus, cultivated by the Father and irrigated by the Holy Spirit, if I keep the word of Jesus in my heart. Deep within me there is a personal zone. If Jesus’ word is allowed to penetrate this zone then it becomes the fount of life in my heart. It is important to have this seed in our heart if we are to produce an eternal harvest. Saul was transformed from being a persecutor to being an Apostle by a word that entered his heart. The Lord Jesus spoke these words to his heart, throwing him to the ground and shaking him from his previous convictions, changing the fundamental orientation of his being.

The Father prunes us. This is an act of purification in which the word of God eliminates other “words” from our hearts.

The Gospel tells us that we are pruned already on account of the word that has been spoken to us. What does it mean to be “pruned”? The original Greek term refers to a process of purification, but in a chemical sense rather than a moral sense. Something is pure if it is of a single nature, not contaminated with impurities. To be pure means to be no longer duplicitous. When the word of Jesus enters our heart, it has a job to do: to chase out other “words”. There is a battle raging at the depths of our being, a process of selection of words. Each one of us has a profound need to listen to what Jesus is saying to us. God directs a word into the depths of our being. That sacred root is the fount of the fruitfulness of our life. We are challenged to be faithful to ourselves and to what God has planted within us, to be purified by the word of God, recognizing that there are other words that need to be eliminated.

If we are to become channels of grace then we must become totally centred on the word God has planted within us. Sterile, bitter, angry and vain words must be eliminated from our hearts.

The parable tells us of the work of the Father in pruning, cutting away, simplifying, so that we become channels of grace, instruments of God. This requires that we must become simple and totally centred on the word that God speaks to my heart. As the Gospel of Matthew says, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”. Our lives must be based on what God says to us. Instead we often try to base our existence on sterile words that lead us nowhere. Our hearts are filled with words that are bitter, angry, sad, imposed on us by the secular culture around us. These are not the true words that God has placed in our hearts. The resurrection transforms us from within, from the word that Christ directs personally to our hearts.