Breaking Open the Word - 5th Sunday of Easter, Year B
5th Sunday of Easter, Year B — May 2nd, 2021
Christ the True Vine Greek Icon
This Sunday, the Church asked us to meditate on Our Lord’s beautiful parable of the Vine and the Branches. As with last week, we began our Scripture sharing with some thoughts on the Collect for the Mass. One Sister was very struck by the central phrase of this opening prayer: “constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us.” This central mystery of our Faith was the peak of Jesus’ life, but it is also something that He wishes to “accomplish” in each of our lives. We may think of the Redemption as something cosmic and universal – which it certainly is! – while forgetting that it is also something intimately personal. Sister described how the Paschal Mystery in us is both a preparation for and a foretaste of the Trinitarian life of Heaven: we live the Passion by giving of ourselves, and the Resurrection by receiving the grace that God pours out in return. Furthermore, this living of the Paschal Mystery is not just a one-time event, or simply a spiritual perspective on our entire life journey. It is a constant, ongoing process which, if we are faithful to grace, draws us ever deeper into the life of Christ. In his own letters, our Holy Founder St. Paul of the Cross would describe this twofold action in the spiritual life as “mystical death” and “divine rebirth.”
But where do we receive the power to do this? Our Gospel reading gives the answer: from Christ the True Vine. If He abides in us and we in Him, He will grant us the grace and strength to meet the challenge of all the little deaths we must face daily, so as to experience just as many resurrections in Him. Another Sister brought out the role of the Holy Spirit in this process. Reading the context of this Gospel passage, we note that this is not the only place where Jesus speaks of “abiding.” Elsewhere, He uses this language to describe the action of the Holy Spirit, Whom He promises to send upon His Apostles. Putting the two images together, we could say that Christ is the Vine, we are the branches, and the Spirit is the “sap” that allows the two to share the same Divine life. If any branch is not receiving a supply of sap, it will wither and die; the same is true for us if we are not filled with the Spirit of Father and Son through the Sacraments and the moral life!
We also spent some time in a delightful “aside,” discussing an intriguing question raised by one of the Sisters: what do the Angels think of all this? How do they, so superior to us by nature, react to the way in which God has chosen to unite Himself so intimately with us? Obviously, the fallen angels (demons) are repelled by this -- thus their constant battle to wrest souls from God. However, the good angels see it in an entirely different way. In a sense, the Angels are one of the most beautiful reflections of God’s humility, that paradoxical Divine law in which the greater serves the lesser. Our Guardian Angels joyfully obey the Lord’s command to serve us, inferior to them as we are! Why? Because they see that in the Communion of Saints, our glory redounds to them, and theirs to us. Far from feeling threatened by the unique love God shows for human beings, the Angels rejoice in this new manifestation of His glory and mercy.
The Exhortation to the Apostles by James Tissot
Finally, a Sister drew our attention to the puzzling final line of our Gospel. Christ tells the Apostles that they will glorify the Father when they “bear much fruit and become My disciples.” Wait – weren’t they already His disciples? And if the chosen Twelve had not yet met this standard, what of the rest of us down through the millennia?
According to the Saints, as long as we are alive, we have room to grow in our following of Christ. Many holy persons, among them St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Faustina, have exclaimed at the end of long and fruitful lives that they are only just beginning to follow the Lord. It is not until we enter Heaven that we can say our discipleship is truly “complete”; this is why the Church only canonizes those who have died! However, we should not be discouraged by this fact. Rather, we should rejoice and thank God for the constant opportunities He offers us for growing and deepening our relationship with Jesus. Returning to our opening theme, it is at the end of our earthly lives that the Paschal Mystery will be most fully accomplished in us. Once we have shared in the death of Christ by our own bodily death, we can rise with Him to the glorious life of Heaven!