Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Cycle B)
Based on Jn 15:1-8 (Gospel), 1 Jn 3:18-24 (Second Reading) and Ac 9:26-31 (First Reading)
From the Series: “Reflections and Teachings of the
Desert”
VINE
AND BRANCHES
“I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn
15:5)
In the year 1990, when Fatima
Parish at San Isidro, iriga City where I was then the Parish Priest, produced a
Yearbook, I used the theme of “Vine and
Branches” as a conceptual framework for book. In that Yearbook, I compared
the parish to a grape plant, complete with root, main trunk, leaves, fruits and
branches. My hypothesis then is that the
parish is not merely an organization of people, with an organizational
structure, but an organism, with a life of itself, like a plant: “the
plant which my Father planted” (Mt 15:13).
In this organism that we
considered as the parish, we have an old and a new plant. The old plant is the
old parish setup, with its old organizational structure. The new plant is the
new parish setup with its local Christian communities, arranged like the rings
of a tree trunk around the Holy Father at the center. As the communities in the
parish grow big and mature, so does the plant, which is this parish, also grow
big and mature.
What we did to have this new plant
that are the Christian communities in the parish, was to insert these new
communities, through a budding operation, into the old plant that is the old
parish structure to make these communities grow and start a life. But once
these budded branches are ready to start their own life apart from the old
parish structure then they will be cut off and planted into a new site to start
a new plant.
The above description of a parish
as compared to the vine and branches of
a grape plant, is based on the gospel narrative which we have for this 5th
Sunday of Easter, which is Jesus Christ’s
parable about the Vine and Branches. Jesus said:
“I am the true vinea and my Father
is the vinedresser.Every branch in me that bears no fruit, bhe cuts
away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even
more. You are prunedc already by means of the word that I have
spoken to you. Make your home in me, as I make mine in you. As a branch cannot
bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you
unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains
in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do
nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is like a branch that has been thrown
away – he withers; these branches are collected and thrown on the fire. If you
remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask what you will and you
shall get it. It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit,
and then you shall be my disciplesd” (Jn 15:1-8).
Footnotes a, b, c, and d for this
text are the following:
a–
On the vine image, cf. Jr 2:21; Is. 5:1+. In the synoptic, Jesus uses the vine
as a symbol of the kingdom of God, Mt 20:1-8; 21:28-31, 33-41 and p, and ‘the
fruit of the vine’ becomes the Eucharistic sacrament of the New Covenant, Mt
26:29p. Here he calls himself the true vine whose fruit, the true Israel, will
not disappoint God’s expectation.
b–The
‘fruit’ is that of a life of obedience to the commandments, especially that of
love, vv. 12-17. Cf. is 5:7; Jr 2:21.
c –
The Greek word seems to be used here in its agricultural sense, but it may also
mean “clean’ or “pure”, cf. 13:10.
d–Var. ‘and so prove
to be my disciples'. In this way the Father is ‘glorified in the Son’, 14:13.
Cf. 21:19.
Jesus Christ’s parable on the Vine
and Branches, especially verses 4-7 of today’s Gospel reading, points to us the
importance and meaning of the word ‘union’, which is lavishly mentioned in
today’s Second Reading taken from 1 John 3:18-24.
The First and Second Readings is
common in reference to knowledge when they say:
Ac 9:30 - When the brothers
knew, they took him to Caesaria, and sent him off from there to Tarsus.o
1 Co 8:1 -
Now about food sacrificed to idols, ‘We all have knowledge’; yes, that is so, but knowledge gives
self-importance – it is love that makes the building grow.
1 Jn 3:20 - Whatever
accusation it may raise against us, because God is greater than our conscience
and he knows everything.i
The words of 1 Co. 8:1 that says, ‘it is love that
makes the building grow’ points to the message of the Second Reading about
love.
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