Staying connected to the vine

Homily: 5^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B

          History's greatest leaders (that is, those whom have had a positive influence on the world) have a way to influence people from the outside in.  With their speech, their ideas, their example, and even their presence these leaders move and motivate those around them: drawing others into their good work and stirring them to action.  Jesus Christ—the world’s greatest leader, amen?—goes much deeper, influencing us from the outside in, yes, but also from the inside out.

          Jesus calls us not only from the outside—through the Scriptures, the Church, the actions of his providential care, and the example of his faithful disciples—but he also unites himself to us so intimately that his very life flows through our veins.  In other words, he’s “inside” us, too.  "I am the vine, you are the branches," we hear him say in today's Gospel.  If we think about this image, we can ask ourselves: “Where does a vine stop and its branches begin?”  And the answer is difficult to come by (unless, perhaps, you are a biologist).  The union between vine and branch is often too integrated to tell.  The sap that gives life to the plant runs seamlessly through the vine and into the branches.  This is not unlike how grace—the sap which is God’s divine life—flows through Christ and into us.  And so we see how, in using this image, Christ is identifying how he stands alone among every other great leader in history: not only does he beat them at their own game, so to speak—influencing others from the outside better than anyone else—but he plays at a level that is so far beyond those other leaders, literally empowering those who follow him with strength they did not have on their own; and in this demonstrating that he is more than just a leader, but that he is truly Lord of all things.  How grateful, therefore, we should be that he has seen fit to make us branches of his vine!

          And yet, as human beings we are a unique kind of branch.  A branch on a natural vine has no choice about whether or not it will stay attached to the vine.  We, however, are responsible for keeping ourselves united to the vine and can choose to separate ourselves from the vine.  And this is a problem: because, as branches, we are tasked to bear fruit from the vine for the world; and if we separate ourselves from the vine, Jesus tells us that we will not bear fruit; and not only that, but that we will then wither, die, and be burned.  So the question arises, how do we stay united to the vine, so that we can bear fruit and, therefore, share in eternal life?  I see four fundamental ways to do just that.

          First, staying united to the vine means constantly growing in our life of prayer.  Prayer is how we expose our souls to the divine sunlight.  Just as plants need exposure to sunlight for energy, so we need to expose ourselves to God's truth and love through reading and reflecting on the sacred scriptures and through conversing with God in the quiet of our hearts.  This must be a daily habit and must grow and adapt over the years in order for us to continue to grow and produce fruit.

          Second, staying united to the vine means making good use of the sacraments, most especially the sacraments of the Eucharist and confession.  If a branch gets damaged in a wind storm, a good gardener knows how to tie it up properly so that it will once again attach itself firmly to the trunk: he binds it or grafts it back on to the vine.  This is what happens through confession: Jesus heals the connection to him that had been damaged or broken because of our sin.  And in the Eucharist, our union with Christ is strengthened more powerfully than at any other time.  Through it we receive an influx of grace like no other.  In the Eucharist, the sap from the vine comes directly into us to nourish us and give us strength.  Every Holy Communion, therefore, is like a spiritual springtime in which a new outpouring of divine life surges into our hearts and minds.

          Third, staying united to the vine requires loving obedience to God's will.  This is that to which Saint John refers in today's Second Reading when he writes: "Children, let us not love one another in word or in speech, but in deed and truth."  It's easy to say pretty words: that is, to talk the talk of being a good Catholic.  But that talk has to translate into actions.  Otherwise, we are no better than actors on a stage, making a show out of looking like Christ's followers, but not really following Christ.  Eastern Orthodox Saint Diadochus of Photike put it this way: “All of us who are human beings are in the image of God.  But to be in his likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God.”  To stay attached to the vine, we must attach our freedom to God through our acts of loving obedience to his will.

          Fourth, staying united to the vine means allowing God to prune us.  Jesus says that each healthy branch of the vine must be pruned "so that it bears more fruit."  This pruning takes the form of suffering, which may come in the form of painful, physical sufferings, like sickness, disease, financial insecurity, or old-age, or it may come in the form of hidden, interior sufferings, like losing a loved one or watching a dear relative abandon their Catholic faith.  Whenever God permits these kinds of sufferings—that is, the ones over which we don't seem to have any control—we have to let our faith remind us that they are under his control.  He is the vine-dresser.  He knows how much pruning we can handle and he knows how to use that suffering to unite us more deeply with Christ, who suffered on the cross to redeem the world.  In times of pain and hardship, therefore, we must recognize that God is begging us to trust in him more and more, to pray in the depths of our hearts that beautiful prayer that he himself taught us through his revelations to Saint Faustina of the Divine Mercy: "Jesus, I trust in you."  Accepting the Cross, not rebelling when God tries to prune us, is the secret of how all the saints remained united to Christ.

          Prayer, the sacraments, loving obedience, and suffering in union with Christ are what keep the grace which is God’s divine life flowing in our lives.  These yield the fruit for which we most yearn: a life that resounds with meaning and energy, a life that positively impacts others and exudes joy and enthusiasm, a life that changes this world for the better in as profound a way as Christ's own life did, and a life whose meaning and impact overflow into eternity.  This is what God wants for us; this is why Jesus came to earth: “By this is my Father glorified,” he said,

“that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”  Bearing such fruit makes life worth living; because without it we are dry, dead branches good for nothing except the fire.

          As we continue with this Mass, let's thank God from the depths of our hearts for uniting us to the vine of Christ.  And when we receive our Lord in Holy Communion, let's promise him that this week we will make a decent effort to do our part to protect and strengthen that union.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 28^th & 29^th, 2018

Being an active branch

          Sorry for the late post.  There were a lot of things going on this weekend!  My niece (and goddaughter), Rachel, received her First Holy Communion this weekend (from me!).  Also, we announced that Fr. Mike has received a new assignment as pastor and I will become the Parish Administrator, effective July 1st.  That's big news and it wasn't really what I expected!  More on that as the weeks go on.  Finally, we had la Kermes (spring carnival) on Sunday to raise funds for the Catholic Heart Work Camp trip in June.  I've been trying to catch up ever since!

          With the announcements about the parish leadership, I find it important to re-affirm that the parish is the branch of the vine that is Jesus in each particular place.  Our parishes must be active places; places of communion that bear fruit for the building of the kingdom of God.  The more diverse the better!

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Homily: 5^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B

          One of the things that has been made abundantly clear to me ever since the first day that I arrived in Logansport is that there used to be three parishes here (did you all know that?).  As I understand it, the three parishes here in the city used to be a little territorial and, at least in the early days, it was taboo for members of one parish to attend Mass at one of the other parishes.  I can imagine the scene quite vividly: a young man tries to slip in the back of the early Mass at the parish to which he doesn’t belong; he is noticed, nonetheless, and hears a few whispers and receives a few looks of suspicion from the congregants seated around him; he’s an outsider and he knows it.  Now, while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this behavior is excusable, I will say that it is understandable.  The ethnic groups that made up each parish were trying hard to maintain their identity and so were anxious about allowing others to infiltrate and possibly dilute their heritage.

          The early Church faced similar challenges.  Today, in particular, we remember the challenge it faced in receiving Saul, also known as Paul.  When Saul left Jerusalem, he was the most fervent persecutor of the disciples of Jesus; but when he returned—having encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and having been baptized by the disciple Ananias in Damascus—Saul was now a disciple himself.  Having heard nothing of this, the community in Jerusalem was suspicious of him.  Thankfully, the disciple Barnabas had gone to Damascus and had seen for himself how Saul had converted and how he was now proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.  It was, therefore, on the testimony of Barnabas—a trusted member of the community—that Saul was then accepted into the community of believers.

          Nevertheless, Saul continued to encounter difficulties.  Among the Hebrew-speaking Jews, he was heard and accepted.  Among the Greek-speaking Jews, however, he was being rejected (they even attempted to kill him!).  It’s hard to say what it was that caused the Greek speaking Jews to react so negatively to Saul, but I suspect that it had something to do with the fact that, although he was a Jew, he wasn’t a Greek-speaking Jew, and so they had a hard time accepting him; and thus we see how the unifying force of Jesus was still being limited by the weaknesses of human nature.

          In the Gospel reading today, we heard Jesus declare that he is the vine and we are the branches.  This is a very rich image.  A vine, like any plant, needs both the trunk and the branches to grow and to continue living.  Each plant has only one trunk but a variety of branches and so in using this image Jesus is giving us an image of the Church.  He is the vine, the trunk which penetrates down into the soil with its roots to extract water and minerals from the ground and thus is the source of life to the branches, and we are the branches, who extend out into the world to absorb what is good in it, like leaves absorb the rays of the sun, so as to provide growth to the vine and to produce its fruit.  The great diversity in shape and size of the branches is what makes the vine strong, allowing it to endure through changing conditions so that it may continue to grow and produce fruit.

          In spite of this very organic ideal, however, we still face the same debilities of human weakness that limited the early Church.  Human nature has been redeemed, but it hasn’t changed.  In spite of all of our best efforts, we still struggle to accept varied expressions of the one faith that we received in baptism.  Sometimes this is limited by the barrier of language; other times, there are more aesthetic barriers: the music, the preaching, our particular devotions, etc.  Our human weaknesses keep us from seeing that, as branches on the vine, we are rich and healthy because of our diversity; instead, we convince ourselves that we are limited by it.

          So, how do we get past these limitations?  I suggest that we stop talking and start acting.  Two years ago, as we prepared to leave for the youth mission trip, I took note of how the Hispanic kids were all huddled together at one end of the sidewalk and the Anglo kids were huddled together on the other side.  I told them that I wasn’t going to let them be like this throughout the whole trip.  In other words, I would expect them to mix together.  Little did I know that God already had a plan.  As these kids traveled together, prayed together, worked together, and served together, the Hispanic/Anglo differences seemed to melt away.  By Thursday night (our last night at the camp) there was no way to distinguish one group from the other: they had mixed together completely.  You see, when they stopped worrying about who they were standing next to and instead focused on the acts of love that they were being given to do, they no longer paid attention to their differences and preferences; rather, they allowed those to fade into the background. 

          In the second reading today, we heard Saint John invite us to “love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”  In other words, he is saying that our love must be expressed in works, not just words, if it is to be true.  And, from what I saw on the youth mission trip, love expressed in deeds makes us blind to our differences because we are focused instead on extending our branches and producing fruit.  Thus, if our community is struggling to be truly integrated (and I’m not saying that it is), then perhaps we need to focus more on doing the work of building God’s kingdom: that is, the work of serving the needs of our community; because it is in them that we will look past our differences; and it is in them that we will know that we belong to the truth.

          My brothers and sisters, we—the Catholic Community of Cass County—are the branch on the vine extended out into this place in order to bear fruit so that the vine will be strengthened and will continue to grow.  Fruit bearing branches are active, however, and so we cannot be idle; rather, we must engage in good deeds if we hope to produce fruit; and the abundance of diversity in our community means that the potential for a rich harvest is great.  Let us, then, boldly engage in these good works so that, rather than being cut off and thrown into the fire like the branches that produce no fruit, we might be a fruitful branch that is pruned so as to produce fruit even more abundantly: fruit by which God our heavenly Father will be truly glorified.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 3^rd, 2015