May 2nd 2021.  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 vine grower.

He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,

and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.

You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.

Remain in me, as I remain in you.

Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own

unless it remains on the vine,

so neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,

because without me you can do nothing.

Anyone who does not remain in me

will be thrown out like a branch and wither;

people will gather them and throw them into a fire

and they will be burned.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you,

ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.

By this is my Father glorified,

that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

SHORTER HOMILY . . . Chapter 15 of John’s Gospel reveals to us the secret of Christian life and greatness. The phrase, “Without me you can do nothing”, is not a threat from Jesus, but a simple statement of the truth that the Christian way of life is not founded on our own initiatives. You might object that most people do things independently of Christ. Will their efforts really come to “nothing”? Yes, all of the things that are done for the glory of this world will not endure one jot beyond this world; they will not lead to eternity. The works of Christ, the works of eternal life, are different. Jesus says that the disciples are “pure” on account of the word that he has spoken to them. The notion of purity in the Bible borrows from the chemical notion of being of a single substance with no contaminants present. The word of Christ has the capacity to purify (when we accept it) by penetrating into us and cutting away that which is extraneous – “circumcision of the heart”. When we act independently of this word that God speaks to our hearts, then we are like the branches that are cut away and thrown in the fire. Each one of us has at some point in our lives been touched by the word of God. But this word must be received and placed at the centre of our existence. In welcoming this word, we are called to live the Easter mystery continually; in other words, a continuous liberation from that which does not bear fruit. Recognizing our weaknesses, every day we must return to this word which separates light from darkness in our lives, and so every day we become a new creation. If we are not rooted in Christ, then our works have no consistency or fruitfulness. Even in the Church it is possible to do works that are useless because they are based solely on our efforts and preoccupations. “Whoever remains in me bears fruit”. This fruitfulness is not according to a quantity that the world calculates but according to heaven’s measure. How many saints lived lives that did not seem to bear concrete results but upon their deaths great fruitfulness was realised! The Christian life is not a story of worldly success. St Stephen, the first martyr, seemed a failure and died an early death, but his martyrdom bore fruit in Paul, the greatest evangelizer of history. If we seek to root our lives in something other than Christ, then we will produce little or nothing. Let us root ourselves in Christ, preserving the luminous word that he has spoken to our hearts. Thus, we will be his disciples and bear much fruit.

LONGER HOMILY FOLLOWS

The first reading tells of the acceptance of Saul by the other disciples. Now, finally, he is joined to the body and his preaching can bear fruit.

On this fifth Sunday of Easter, the first reading is from chapter nine of the Acts of the Apostles. Saul comes to Jerusalem after his conversion, but the other disciples are afraid of him. Barnabas shoes himself to be this marvellous, discerning figure who welcomes the controversial person into their midst. Barnabas appreciates the value of Saul and introduces him to the others. Once Paul has been accepted he is free to proclaim the Gospel, and he does so in a full and effective way because now, finally, he is united to the rest of the body. What must be accepted? What must be rejected? What inspires fear? These thoughts introduce us to the Gospel for Sunday, which speaks of the vine and its branches.

The Father cuts off the branches that are fruitless while he prunes the branches that bear fruit. He is always cutting, one way or another!

Three roles are mentioned in the analogy of the vine. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches and the Father is the vine grower. The description of the process of cultivation is truly enlightening “He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.” This reveals something fundamental of the way the Father works with each one of us. If a branch does not bear fruit, the Father cuts it. Anyone who does not remain in Christ is cut off, gathered and thrown in the fire – a terrible scenario! What is unfruitful is cut away by the Father. The surprising thing is that the branch that does bear fruit is also pruned so that it might bear even more fruit. So the branch that bears no fruit is cut while the fruitful branch is pruned. Does this mean that the Father is always cutting something away? Yes, the Father is always cutting away!

Life should be a process of progressive simplification, a shedding of that which does not lead us to God

We tend to think that we are in a general state of deprivation with regard to something or other, but the fact is that we suffer more from the excesses in our lives. The really good travellers travel light because they know that they need little. It is the same with God. Firstly, the Lord provides everything we need, and, secondly, when we are with the Lord we need nothing else because he is everything. Life is a process of growth in simplification. In other words, a process of becoming free from that which leads us nowhere. The Father cuts these things away. How does he do it? With violence? No, these things die by themselves and then other people come and dispose of these things entirely. The same is true in the ecclesiastical sphere. Many of the things we do are rejected by others. The fact is that many people are not interested in the things we have to say to them in our parishes, because these things we say and do are withered branches, detached from the Father, self-referential, self-celebratory. It is not so much that the world discarded these initiatives of ours but that the Father was never in them – they remained solely our own initiatives. On this matter we should examine our consciences regularly and accept the rejections that the world presents to us. It is as the Lord is saying to us: “My things have eternity within them. They pass through the crises of Easter, but they rise again. And if this initiative of yours does not rise, then maybe it does not come from me at all”.

The deadweight in our lives must be pruned away. All that must be retained is that which leads us to God

The things that do bear fruit are pruned. Where and how are plants pruned, normally? When I speak of these things with young people, I discover that few of them know how to prune a plant. Usually we prune a branch above the first or second bud. If the second bud looks promising then we prune above it, but if it does not look very healthy, then we prune above the first bud. The principle is that we retain nothing that is not going to be fruitful. In our lives there is so much deadweight! And we must allow the Lord to strip us of it. Many of the cuts we receive during life are not things to be complained about but rather welcomed wholeheartedly. The Lord does not want us to have one millimetre more than what unites us to him. Whatever is outside of our union with the Father does not lead us anywhere. All these things are for corruptibility and fire. This beautiful text is full of profound wisdom. It teaches us to free ourselves, or allow ourselves to be freed, from everything that does not lead to heaven. When St Philip Neri famously said, “I prefer Paradise”, this is what he was referring to. Whatever united him to authentic life would be retained by him. He was not speaking in an abstract way of where he would like his life to end up. Rather he was speaking of a choice that he was making moment by moment: the union with those things that lead to paradise and the abandonment of those things that lead to emptiness. How much energy we consume on so many projects that do not lead anywhere! Also in the world of the Church, so much time is spent on ecclesiastical bureaucracy that bears little fruit. This is not to deny that we need a certain order in the Church, but we need to be absolutely rooted in the Lord. Whatever makes us bloom is to be retained jealously. That which causes us to implode is to be abandoned immediately.