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I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. [Jn 15:1-4]

Artist: Victor Luciano Rebuffo

(1903-1983)

Buenos Aires, Argentina

"TRUE VINE" ^_[1]

BELOVED DISCIPLE

1. The Epistles of John present profound truth in simple, unadorned language. From the heart of these letters issues God's call to authentic discipleship. "Leading a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" [Col 1:10], characterize the life of the true, loving disciple. That the identity of the Beloved Disciple in Johns Gospel remains a mystery to this day cannot be dismissed as an insignificant oversight in the Sacred Writings, for the words of Sacred Scripture are inspired and not one expression is trivial or superficial. In every time and place, the Living God personally invites each Christian to be his Beloved Disciple. The beloved disciples of every generation heed the Master when he calls to them: "My little children!" [1Jn 2:1] They hurry to their Teacher, to sit in his shadow with great delight, to savor his fruit which is sweet to their taste. The Master, who entices his little disciples with Truth, brings them to the banqueting house, and his banner over them is love. [cf. SongSol 2:3b-4] Love is truth and deed. Truth is the gospel of moral and ethical living in the name of Jesus Christ. Deed is our service to the Gospel message. Both reveal the signature of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of the faithful disciple. To live a life of deed and truth is to break the power of sin. Lives of truth and deeds of mercy in the Spirit console^[2] our wounded souls and impel us to audacious confidence^[3] Long after our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession, God remembers the truth and deeds of our love. Among Isaiah's prophecies, a remarkable poetic passage stands out. In the beginning verses, the prophet speaks for God. Midway through the text, however, the prophets tongue gives way to that of God's own voice. The Father sings of Israel, His first-born son,^[4] and mourns the bitter outcome of their troubled relationship:

LET ME sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He digged it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?^[5] [Isa 5:1-4]

The gospel meditation on the true vine is no less poignant: "I am the vine," says the Lord, "you are the branches". [Jn 15:5] Declaring that barren branches are destined to be pruned away, Jesus denounces as fiction any notion that branches broken from the vine can bear fruit: "If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned." [Jn 15:6]

BROKEN BRANCHES, WILD GRAPES

2. Our nation is being strangled by broken branches and wild grapes. Workers do not produce in places of business. Citizens revile their government. Sons and daughters reject the love of family and friends. Young people cut themselves off from school. Tormented persons attack society with acts of crime and vengeance. Defying competent authority is a national sport. The scourge of drugs, the plague of armed violence and the holocaust of the unborn have emerged as norms of secular life, the culture of death.^[6] Less obvious are broken branches and wild grapes within the Church. Many Catholics abandon the faith in which they were raised. Many lay persons assail the Church that they claim to love. Communion Catholics claim an attachment to the Eucharist, however infrequent their reception of Holy Eucharist or careless and blase their participation in worship. For nominal or fallen away Catholics, the boundaries of religion are the doors of the church building. Preferring to be their own masters,^[7] they disdain the primacy of the Lord in their work, their style of life, in their homes, and among their families and friends. While ignoring or rejecting moral and ethical teachings of the Church, the fruit of the Gospel, they condescend to imagine that they will glide coach-borne through the gate of heaven on a highway wide, smooth and democratic enough for even the most indolent, torpid Christians. They complacently assume, by means of an appalling process of self-deception, that universal salvation is assured, that all human beings, at the time of death, will go to the light--without the slightest idea of what the light is.

PLOWED UNDER AND FORGOTTEN

3. Jesus' teaching is clear: "He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but (Christ) who seeks the glory of (God) who sent Him is true, and in Him there is no falsehood." [Jn 7:18] If the substance of one's ordinary life is barren of the truth of the living Gospel, and destitute of the deeds of discipleship, then his Sunday duty itself is withered and fruitless. Observe that when a branch splits from the tree giving it life, it cannot survive, though it should hang on by a splinter of bark and wood. Wild grapes and barren branches are the same things: in the end, they will be plowed under and forgotten by God.^[8] The true vine is Christ the Groom indissolubly united to His Bride the Church of which He is the head: "To be fruitful one must be joined to the new, true vine, Christ: it is no longer a matter of simply belonging to a community but of living the life of Christ, the life of grace, which is the nourishment which passes life on to the believer and enables him to yield fruits of eternal life."^[9] To bear fruit refers to deeds born of living faith, nourished by the teachings of Christ and His Church. Once a Christian accepts the mission of discipleship, he vows to unite Christ to the whole of his ordinary life. Bearing much fruit glorifies [cf. Jn 15:8 ] and pleases God. We advance far in spirituality when pleasing God is our motivation for truth and deed. To please God is to recognize the personhood of the living God. To confess the personhood of God is to discover one's relationship with God. To relate to God is to grow in the fear of the Lord.^[10] [Psa 19:7-9] What is the proof of authentic love? Love is proven by our solid attachment to Christ the True Vine and the abundant harvest of truth and deed in our lives.^[11] Love is proven by our willingness to allow the Word of God to cleanse us, that we may be perfected and prepared for a mighty harvest in Christ. Life in the ecclesial community of like-minded disciples will yield an abundant harvest: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." [Jn 15:16] The meaning of love far exceeds the beauty of words. Love is infinitely more important than talk. It is not enough merely to offer love. One must give love selflessly, even in the most difficult circumstances. Nor is it enough simply to accept love, one must receive it as the highest gift [cf. 1Cor 13:13], even when bestowed by the humblest person or elucidated by the Universal Church.

^[1] Cycle B /Fifth Sunday of Easter /Acts 9:26-31 /1Jn 3:18-24 /Jn 15:1-8.

^[2] e.g. Lat. consolatium fratrum (consolation of the brethren, to be beside one): "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." [Mt 18:20]

^[3] Cf St. Therese of Lisieux, COMPLETE SPIRITUAL DOCTRINE OF ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX, Francois Jamart OCD (New York: Alba House, 1961) 53-54. "I feel always the same audacious confidence that I will become a great saint, for I do not count on my own merits since I have none, but I hope in Him who is virtue and sanctity itself. It is He and He alone who, being satisfied with my feeble efforts, will raise me to Himself and, covering me with his infinite merits, will make me a saint."

^[4] "And you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son...'" [Exo 4:22]

^[5] "Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?" [Jer 2:21]

^[6] Cf John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 22 (1995). "...it is no less true that we are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable 'culture of death.'"

Cf VATICAN COUNCIL II, Gaudium et Spes, no. 27 (1965). "The varieties of crime are numerous: all offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and willful suicide; all violations of the integrity of the human person, such as mutilations, physical and mental torture, undue psychological pressures; all offenses against human life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, all violations of the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical or mental torture, undue psychological pressures; all offenses against human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, degrading working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit rather than free and responsible persons; all these and the like are criminal. They poison civilization, and they debase the perpetrators more than the victims and militate against the honor of the Creator."

^[7] "Do not exalt yourself through your soul's counsel, lest your soul be torn in pieces like a bull. You will devour your leaves and destroy your fruit, and will be left like a withered tree." [Sir 6:1-2]

^[8] "And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting." [Isa 5:5-7]

^[9] THE GOSPEL OF SAINT JOHN, Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, THE NAVARRE BIBLE series (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992) 194.

^[10] "Restore us, O God of hosts; let thy face shine, that we may be saved! Thou didst bring a vine out of Egypt; thou didst drive out the nations and plant it. Thou didst clear the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches; it sent out its branches to the sea, and its shoots to the River. Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine..." [Psa 80:7-11,14]

^[11] "Once you were no people but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy." [1Pet 2:10]