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.’

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 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.