Search
-
May 4, 2021Abu Dhabi.
Readings of the Day:
Acts 9:26-31; 1 John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8
I have grown up in a region where the fruit trees and the vines had to be pruned every winter. My father and my elder brothers made the tree-cut. As the youngest, I had to collect the trimmed branches and put them on a heap as firewood. Looking at the trees after the cut, I always felt that they were truncated too much and that the trees would no more sprout in springtime. However, I was wrong. Every year, the trees were sprouting again and bearing even more fruit.
Jesus must have observed something similar in Galilee. Today he tells us in the gospel, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Whoever had the chance to work in a vineyard knows that branches are getting the life-giving sap from the vine. Cut off, the branches are dead. Jesus is the vine who gives life to us, his members. The heavenly Father is the vinedresser. He prunes us, the branches, as my father back home did it with the fruit trees and the grapes, in order to get more and better fruits. Like the vines are bleeding when they are pruned, we too feel wounded in our lives when the heavenly father is cutting away what hinders our spiritual progress and capacity of bearing fruit. Our human nature would prefer to grow exuberantly like in the jungle. However, we would finally remain fruitless.
In today’s first reading, we have an example that shows us how God prunes. Saul, on the way to Damascus, had been caught by the risen Christ. From a ferocious persecutor of the Christians, he was converted into an enthusiastic follower of Jesus. However, when he went up to Jerusalem, the community was full of mistrust and refused him. Barnabas acted as mediator and made Saul finally accepted. However, the enthusiastic preaching of the newly converted provoked opposition to the point that some wanted to kill him. In order to save Saul’s life, the leaders of the community in Jerusalem decided to bring him to port and send him back to his hometown Tarsus. There he had to wait about 10 years until Barnabas looked again after him and brought him to Antioch. Only now, after a long retreat and deepening his union with Christ, he could start his great mission. God had pruned the vine. Now he was ready to bear fruit.
Every faithful has to pass in one way or another through the tree-cut of the heavenly Father. There are faithful who like Saul after a striking spiritual experience wants to evangelize the whole world. Most of the time, the community of the Church will first react with reservation and sobriety. The Church wants to know if the conversion is lasting or only a short straw-fire. Paul has passed the test because he humbly accepted the temporary ban until Barnabas as the representative of the Church in Jerusalem looked again after Saul and brought him to Antioch from where the mission among the pagans started. It happens that a faithful feel the call for a ministry within the church community. It can be the call to the priesthood or to religious life. It can be the call to a lay ministry as a reader or communion helper, as leader of a prayer group or as a preacher. All have should know that every ministry in the Church from the reader in the mass to the bishop and the pope is not based on the claim of the individual person, but on the call of God through the Church community. Even Paul though called by the risen Lord had to pass this test.
Bearing fruit as a Christian does not so much depend on our human qualities, but on our organic connection with Christ, the true vine. In order to activate the full potential, the divine tree-cutter and vinedresser have to prune the vine. Am I ready to let God do his job even if it pains and requires our patience? Even, if we are not getting immediate recognition but have to wait like Paul? If we truly “believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ” and “love one another” - we heard it today - we shall bear fruit. The organic connection with Jesus is and remains the source for a fruitful Christian life. The Lord said in the gospel, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.” It happens now, when we celebrate the Holy Eucharist and receive the body of Christ. Now the Lord wants to make his home in us and push us to action, as John said in today’s second reading, “Our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active.” Then it will happen what Jesus promised today, “Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty.” Keep the words of Jesus in mind at the moment of the Holy Communion: “Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty.”