14/05/2006 - 5th SUNDAY OF EASTER
- Year B
First Reading Acts 9:26-31 Psalm 21/22
Second Reading 1John 3:18-24 Gospel John 15:1-8
Honour your father and your mother! Thanks to this commandment, which helps
us understand how God cares for our family, parents feel compelled to ensure
that their task of giving life is fulfilled. This is why they are not happy
just having children; but they care about how they grow up. They care about
the food they eat, their health, their education and making sure that their
faith is not flawed, sick, weak or forgotten, in their choices of the every
day quality of life. The children collaborate with the parents by loving their
siblings and other relatives for whom the family is responsible to support or
assist. Our relatives are our first community, a natural community, which helps
us to experience, in small ways, the joy of the final, eternal community of
the saints! It is our joy, but also our duty, to ensure that our relationship
with them is healthy and holy, so that, even the small and the weak in faith
may find nourishment in all that they need, and experience the love of the Father!
Jesus uses a most beautiful image to help us understand who He is and who we
are! We are someone, thanks to Him, because we have a living rapport with His
person. His identity has value and consistence in our relationship with Him,
and it is solid because He is eternal! He compares Himself to the vine, a precious
plant, because its fruit becomes "the wine which brightens the heart of
man"! The vine, however, is the first image used by the prophets in speaking
of the people of Israel: this people are the vine which, though planted and
cared for with the love and attention of God, produced sour grapes which, when
gathered, could not be used to make sweet, pleasant wine. On the contrary, Jesus
defines Himself as the "true vine", which gives joy and glory to the
Father, because the fruit will be welcomed by Him. He will bear "fruit"
along with His disciples; in fact, He defines them as "the shoots"!
How precious we are, therefore, for Him and for the Father! Jesus tells us that
the Father, Himself, takes care of the vines and observes the shoots carefully,
so as to raise them and prune them. Of course, the shoots need to be pruned,
not as punishment, but so that they may be more fruitful.
We all know how the farmer prunes the vine, but we don't know how the Father
"prunes" Jesus' disciples! Because He says: "You are already
cleaned by the Word that I gave you", we understand that the principal
pruning comes from the words and the teachings of Jesus. Whoever welcomes the
Word of the Lord as the light and the guide for life, leaves behind his own
habits and beliefs, borne of human selfishness, and will be purified, pruned
and ready to bear fruit for the kingdom of God! To welcome and to keep the Word
of Jesus is our assurance of being united with Him, and the assurance that the
Father will listen and welcome our desires, desires which spring from meditation
on the same Word.
We see these realities truly lived in the lives of the saints. They welcomed
the Word of the Lord and their lives were transformed and bore fruit, a fruit
which the Church is proud of and from which the world benefits! Their prayer
was heard by the Father, who took their union to His Son so seriously, that
He listened to their wishes as He did the wishes of Jesus, Himself! We ask ourselves
if we, too, might not become like them! Of course! Their example is given so
that we may imitate them. We, often, become discouraged when facing difficulty:
they are present, but they serve to purify and strengthen us. Saint Paul, too,
faced difficulties when He first became a Christian, as Luke tells us in the
Acts: the same Christians of Jerusalem did not trust him, until Barnabas intervened
in all his authority, so that the believers were convinced that the dangerous
Saul became the meek Paul!
I, often, ask myself what the Word is that I must live, in order to be united
with Jesus, and that the Father, who will be pruning me, would like! Saint John
helps us: "This is my commandment: believe in the name of His Son, Jesus
Christ and love one another"! To believe and to love; to believe in Jesus
and to love, as He loved! With these words, all His teaching is made clear!
By living these few words, we are united with Jesus and we are loved and heard
by the Father. Believing in the name of the Son; that is, trusting in Jesus,
and giving to one another the love which we received from Him! Jesus does not
want me only to love, but that I will allow others to love me; that I accept
that someone might suffer on my behalf; or, may have difficulty in welcoming
and supporting me! This behaviour adds humility to my ability to love others.
In fact, this could make me proud, and pride would render my love unwelcome
by others, not only by God!
Thank You, Lord Jesus who, through the Church, give the fruit of Your Passion
and Your Resurrection to the whole world!