Parish Missions

Vine and Branches: An Intimate Relationship

Biking weather has returned to Northeastern Ohio! It was a long, long winter so any sign of new life in the landscape I unabashedly relish. My bike rides this past week through the Metro Park System were energizing and restorative.

While on a recent ride I was stunned by the beauty of a dogwood in the middle of a grassy knoll between the bike path and the Parkway. Forgetting trail courtesy I veered off the path onto the grass for a closer, admiring look. The tree was spectacular! Dogwoods don’t often do well here, especially after such a brutal winter, but this one was so full of blossoms it was hard to see the branches.

On the ground several feet away I spotted a small branch, perhaps from that wondrous tree, withering away. It had some blossoms that had already wilted and many of the smaller branches, mere twigs, were barren. It had apparently broken off and was blown away by a spring breeze. It could no longer get its nourishment from the tree. The contrast with the neighboring tree’s abundant blossoms was startling.

As my friend Howard would say, “There’s a homily in there.”

Jesus tells us today that he is the vine and we, as his Holy People, are the branches. The message of John’s Gospel is if we remain in Jesus, no matter what our circumstances, we will bear much fruit, for his living Spirit will move through us. This is one of the primary images Jesus offers for the community of faith he came to establish.

Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own

unless it remains on the vine,

so neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever remains in me and I in them will bear much fruit,

because without me you can do nothing.

.....

By this is my Father glorified,

that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

An intimate relationship is being proposed here. This is a powerful image of what the Universal Church should strive to be. What makes Christianity one is that very relationship with Jesus. The Spirit of the Risen Christ--his person, his message and his mission--was focused on creating a faith community dedicated to compassion and healing and a new creation of universal peace and justice:

and the way we know that he remains in us

is from the Spirit he gave us.

Our parish family should mirror that image as well. As long as we stay connected to the Sacred Story of God's love for us and are nourished with the Body and Blood of Jesus, the Sacrament of God's love for us, then we will blossom and be able to do the work that will bear fruit that gives glory to God.

That image also has meaning for other intimate relationships. A comparison to our families on this Mother’s Day is equally appropriate. Our mothers hold dear the responsibility to nourish us with their guidance and love so that we can blossom forth into men and women of abiding faith and personal dignity.

Catholic education should boast of the intimate relationship of the vine and the branches. With Christ as the vine, faculties and support staffs provide the creative enterprise that allows the young men and women entrusted to their care to blossom in the fullness of their faith and human potential.

St. Martin de Porres High School in Cleveland is a prime example of a network of such relationships. Part of the Jesuit Cristo Rey Network of urban secondary schools, the St. Martin staff, along with the business and professional community of Greater Cleveland, are offering our urban youth opportunities to receive a faith based college prep education that would otherwise not be available to them. As St. Martin de Porres High School celebrates the birth of their patron this weekend, it too remains a witness to the effectiveness of Jesus’ model of the vine and the branches.

The Scriptures and the Eucharistic liturgy invite us today to enter fully into the image of the vine and the branches. The intimate relationship that image suggests is not simply between our Risen Lord and our own personal faith journey. It is the model for all our communal relationships: church, parish, family, school as it was for the early Christian community described in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles:

The church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria

was at peace. It was being built up and walked in the fear

of the Lord, and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit

it grew in numbers.