Fifth Sunday of Easter

When I was ordained priest, it was the custom to produce for your first Mass a little prayer card that could be given out to people. The newly ordained priest would normally put a verse from the Bible that was significant for him on the card. On my own card, I placed a verse from today’s gospel reading, ‘Cut off from me you can do nothing’. At the time the verse said to me that it was only through my own personal communion with the Lord that I could do anything worthwhile as a priest, and that, therefore, my own relationship with the Lord was the most important relationship to work on. I still often return to that verse today.

Jesus was speaking to his disciples, to all of us today who are trying to be his disciples. The primary reference for Jesus’ words is not the sacrament of ordination but of baptism. When Jesus says, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, he is addressing all the baptized. He is speaking about the very deep communion that he wants to have with each one of us, in virtue of our baptism. When you look at a fully grown vine, it can be hard to know where the stem ends and where the branches begin. Jesus was very familiar with vines; there were plenty of them in Galilee. He saw in the intimate relationship between the stem of the vine and its branches an image of the relationship he wanted to have with each of us and wanted each of us to have with him. He doesn’t say, ‘I am the vine and now you must become the branches’, but rather, ‘I am the vine and you are the branches’. The Lord has already entered into a deeply personal relationship with each of us through his life, death, resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit into our lives. He has taken the initiative to enter into this relationship with us and he will never take back his initiative. Our calling is to remain in that relationship which he has initiated with us. In the gospel reading, he calls on us to remain in him, as branches need to remain on the vine. Another way Jesus expresses this call in the gospel reading is, ‘Make your home in me, as I make mine in you’. The Lord has chosen to make his home in us, through the Holy Spirit, and now he calls on us to make our home in him.

What Jesus is doing in today’s gospel reading is reminding us that what is essential in our faith is nurturing our relationship with him, so that we can live off the sap that flows from him, just as the branches of the vine live off the sap that flows from the roots of the vine up into the stem. We might be tempted to think that a close union with Jesus is only for saints and mystics. It is a privilege that is granted to us all. Jesus knew that only our close communion with him would make it possible for us to live with his life, which is a life of loving service of others. This is the fruit that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading. ‘Whoever remains in me, with me in them, bears fruit in plenty’. Only a branch untied to the vine can produce grapes and only if we are united to the Lord through faith can our lives bear the fruit of the Lord’s love. Many of the children in our schools have recently celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation. As part of their preparation, they learned a short passage from the letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians where he says, ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’. This is the fruit that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading. Paul speaks of it as the fruit of the Spirit; Jesus speaks of it as the fruit of our communion with him. They are saying the same thing, because it is through the Spirit that the Lord lives in us and we live in him. In the words of Saint John in the second reading, ‘We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us’.

Today’s first reading gives us a picture of what this fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of love, looks like in practice. Saul had been one of the church’s fiercest persecutors. When he became a member of the church after the Lord’s appearance to him on the road to Damascus, it is not surprising that many in the church were suspicious of him, indeed, afraid of him. It was Barnabas, a leading member of the church, who opened the door for Saul, explaining to the doubters that the Lord had appeared to Saul or Paul and had spoken to him and that Paul had been preaching the gospel ever since. Barnabas believed in Paul when others doubted him and he created a space for Paul to exercise the mission the Lord had given him. One of the ways we show our love for others is by creating the space for them to shine, allowing them to become the person God is calling them to be. Such humble service is the fruit of our communion with the Lord.