Remain

Let us pray today for the students, the children who are studying, and the teachers who must find new ways to move forward in teaching. May the Lord help them on this path, give them courage and also great success. 

The Lord returns to "remain in Him", and tells us: "Christian life is to remain in me." Remain (John 15: 1-8). And here he uses the image of the vine, how the branches remain on the vine. And this remain is not a passive remain, a falling asleep in the Lord: this would perhaps be a beatific sleep; but that's not it. This remain is an active remain, and also is a mutual remain. Why? Because He says, "Remain in me and I in you" (v .4). He also remains in us, not only us in Him. It's a mutual remain. In another part he says: I and my Father "we will come to him and make our home with him"(John 14:23). This is a mystery, but a mystery of life, a beautiful mystery. This mutual remaining. Even with the example of the vine: it is true, the branches without the vine can do nothing because the sap doesn't get to them, they need the sap to grow and to bear fruit. But also the tree, the vine needs branches, otherwise the fruits are not attached to the tree, to the vine. It is a mutual need, it is a reciprocal remain to bear fruit.

And this is Christian life: it is true, Christian life is to carry out the commandments (Ex 20, 1-11), this must be done. Christian life is to follow the way of the Beatitudes (Mt 5: 1-13): this must be done. Christian life is to carry on the works of mercy, as the Lord teaches us in the Gospel (Mt 25: 35-36): and this must be done. But even more: it is this mutual remaining. We without Jesus cannot do anything, like the branches without the vine. And He – let me say it – without us it seems that He can do nothing, because the fruit comes from the branches, not the tree, the vine. In this community, in this intimacy of remaining fruitful, the Father and Jesus remain in me and I remain in Them. 

And it comes to my mind to say, what is the need that the tree, the vine has for the branches? It's bearing fruit. What is the need - let's say a little boldly - what is the need that Jesus has for us? The testimony. When he says in the Gospel that we are light, he says, "Be the light, so that men may see your good deeds and glorify the Father"(Mt 5:16), that is, witness is the need that Jesus has for us. To bear witness to his name, so that faith, the Gospel grows by our testimony.

This is a mysterious way: Jesus glorified in heaven, having passed through the Passion, needs our testimony to grow, to proclaim, for the Church to grow. And this is the mutual mystery of "remaining." He, the Father and the Spirit remain in us, and we remain in Jesus.

It will do us good to think and reflect on this: to remain in Jesus; and Jesus remains in us. To remain in Jesus to have the sap, the strength, to have the justification, the gratuitousness, to have fertility. And He remains in us to give us the strength to the bear fruit (John 15: 5), to give us the strength to witness with which the Church grows.

And one question, I ask myself: what is the relationship between Jesus remaining in me and I remaining in Him? It's a relationship of intimacy, a mystical relationship, a wordless relationship. "But Father, but this, let the mystics do it!" No, this is for all of us. With small thoughts: "Lord, I know you are there: give me strength and I will do what you tell me." That intimate dialogue with the Lord. The Lord is present, the Lord is present in us, the Father is present in us, the Holy Spirit is present in us; they remain in us. But I have to remain in Them.

May the Lord help us to understand, to feel this mystery of remaining on which Jesus insists so much, so much, so much. Many times when we talk about the vine and the branches we stop at the image of the work of the farmer, the Father: the one that bears fruit he prunes, that is, he prunes, and those that don't bear fruit he cuts and throws away (John 15: 1-2). It's true, he does this, but that's not all, no. There's more. This is the help: the trials, the difficulties of life, even the corrections that the Lord gives us. But let's not stop there. Between the vine and the branches there is this intimate remaining. We, the branches, need the sap, and the vine needs the fruits, our testimony.

13.05.20

Dear brothers and sisters, good afternoon.

In the Gospel of this Fifth Sunday of Easter (Jn 15:1-8), the Lord presents himself as the true vine, and speaks of us as the branches that cannot live without being united to Him. And so He says: “I am the vine, you are the branches” (v. 5). There is no vine without branches, and vice versa. The branches are not self-sufficient, but depend totally on the vine, which is the source of their existence.

Jesus insists on the verb “to abide”. He repeats it seven times in today’s Gospel reading. Before leaving this world and going to the Father, Jesus wants to reassure His disciples that they can continue to be united with Him. He says, “Abide in me, and I in you” (v. 4). This abiding is not a question of abiding passively, of “slumbering” in the Lord, letting oneself be lulled by life: no, no! It is not this. The abiding in Him, the abiding in Jesus that He proposes to us is abiding actively, and also reciprocally. Why? Because the branches without the vine can do nothing, they need sap to grow and to bear fruit; but the vine, too, needs the branches, since fruit does not grow on the tree trunk. It is a reciprocal need, it is a question of a reciprocal abiding so as to bear fruit. We abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us.

First of all, we need Him. The Lord wants to say to us that before the observance of His commandments, before the beatitudes, before works of mercy, it is necessary to be united to Him, to remain in him. We cannot be good Christians if we do not remain in Jesus. With Him, instead, we can do everything (cf. Phil 4:13). With Him we can do everything.

But even Jesus needs us, like the vine with the branches. Perhaps to say this seems audacious to us, and so we ask ourselves: in what sense does Jesus need us? He needs our witness. Like the branches the fruit we must give is the witness to our lives as Christians. After Jesus ascended to the Father, the task of the disciples - it is our task - is to continue to proclaim the Gospel in words and in deeds. And the disciples - we, Jesus’ disciples - do so by bearing witness to His love: the fruit to be borne is love. Attached to Christ, we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and in this way we can do good to our neighbour, we can do good to society, to the Church. The tree is known by its fruit. A truly Christian life bears witness to Christ.

And how can we succeed in doing this? Jesus says to us: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (v.7). This too is bold: the certainty that what we ask for will be given to us. The fruitfulness of our life depends on prayer. We can ask to think like Him, to act like Him, to see the world and things with the eyes of Jesus. And in this way, to love our brothers and sisters, starting from the poorest and those who suffer most, like He did, and to love them with His heart and to bring to the world fruits of goodness, fruits of charity, fruits of peace.

Let us entrust ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. She always remained completely united to Jesus and bore much fruit. May she help us abide in Christ, in his love, in his word, to bear witness to the Risen Lord in the world. 

02.05.21

Jesus is the vine; we are the branches.  Like a patient farmer, God, the merciful and good Father, tenderly cultivates us so that our lives may be filled with much fruit. This is why Jesus urges us to safeguard the invaluable gift of our relationship with him, upon which our life and fruitfulness depend. He persistently repeats, “Remain in me, as I remain in you. […]  Abide in me, and I in you. […] He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (Jn 15:4-5). Only those who remain united with Jesus will bear fruit. Let us pause to consider this.

Jesus is about to conclude his earthly mission. At the Last Supper with those who will become his apostles, he entrusts to them several key words, along with the Eucharist. This is one of those words: “remain”, keep the connection with me alive, remain united to me as branches to the vine. Using this imagery, Jesus revisits a biblical metaphor that was well-known to the people and found in prayers, as in the psalm that says, “Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine” (Ps 80:15).  Israel is the vineyard that the Lord planted and cared for. When the people fail to produce the fruits of love that the Lord expects, the prophet Isaiah issues an indictment using the parable of a farmer who plows his vineyard, removed the stones, and planted choice vines, expecting it to produce good wine, but it yielded only sour grapes. The prophet concludes: “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, the men of Judah, are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry!” (Is 5:7). Jesus himself, drawing from Isaiah, recounts the dramatic parable of the murderous vineyard workers, highlighting the contrast between God’s patient work and his people’s rejection (cf. Mt 21:33-44).

Thus, while the metaphor of the vine expresses God’s loving care for us, it also warns us that if we sever this connection with the Lord, we cannot produce fruits of good life and we run the risk of becoming dry branches. It is a shame to become dry branches, those branches that get cast aside.

Brothers and sisters, against the backdrop of the image used by Jesus, I also think of the long history that links Venice to vineyards and wine production, the care of many viticulturists, and the numerous vineyards that arose on the islands of the Lagoon and in the gardens between the city’s alleys, and those in which monks produced wine for their communities. Within this historical memory, it is not difficult to grasp the message of the parable of the vine and the branches: faith in Jesus, the bond with him, does not imprison our freedom. On the contrary, it opens us to receive the sap of God’s love, which multiplies our joy, takes care of us like a skilled vintner and brings forth shoots even when the soil of our life becomes arid. And our heart often becomes arid.

Yet, the metaphor that came from Jesus’ heart can also be interpreted while thinking of this city built on water, recognized for its uniqueness as one of the most picturesque places in the world. Venice is one with the waters upon which it sits. Without taking care of and safeguarding this natural environment, it could even cease to exist. Similarly, our life is also immersed forever in the springs of God’s love. We were regenerated in Baptism, reborn to new life from water and the Holy Spirit, and grafted into Christ, like the branches in the vine. The sap of this love flows through us, without which we become dry branches, bearing no fruit. When Blessed John Paul I was Patriarch of this city, he once said that Jesus “came to bring people eternal life”. And he continued: “That life is in Him, and from Him it passes to His disciples, like sap rising from the trunk to the branches of the vine. It is a fresh water that He gives, a fountain always bubbling forth” (cf. A. Luciani, Venice 1975-1976. Complete Works. Speeches, writings, articles, vol. vii, Padova 2011, 158).

Brothers and sisters, this is what matters: to remain in the Lord, to abide in him. Let us reflect on this for one minute: to remain in the Lord, to abide in him. This verb — to remain — should not be interpreted as something static, as if it were telling us to stand still, parked in passivity. Indeed, it invites us to move, because to remain in the Lord means to grow in relationship with him, to converse with him, to embrace his Word, to follow him on the path of the Kingdom of God. It thus involves following him on a journey, letting ourselves be challenged by his Gospel, and becoming witnesses of his love.

Therefore, Jesus says that whoever remains in him bears fruit. And it is not just any fruit! The fruit of the branches where the sap flows is the grape, and from the grape comes the wine, which is a quintessentially messianic sign. Jesus, the Messiah sent by the Father, brings the wine of God’s love into the heart of humanity and fills it with joy. He fills it with hope.

Dear brothers and sisters, this is the fruit we are called to bear in our lives, in our relationships, in the places we visit every day, in our society, at work. As we gaze upon this city of Venice today, we admire its enchanting beauty. Yet, we are also concerned about the many issues that threaten it: climate change, which impacts the waters of the Lagoon and the land; the fragility of constructions, of the cultural heritage, but also of people; the difficulty of creating an environment that is fit for human beings through adequate management of tourism; and moreover, all that these realities risk generating in terms of frayed social relations, individualism, and loneliness.

And we Christians, who are branches united to the vine, the vineyard of God who cares for humanity and created the world as a garden so that we may flourish and make it flourish — how do we Christians respond? By remaining united to Christ, we can bring the fruits of the Gospel into the reality we inhabit: fruits of justice and peace, fruits of solidarity and mutual care; carefully-made choices to preserve our environmental and human heritage. Let us not forget the human heritage, our great humanity, the one that God took on, in order to walk with us.  We need our Christian communities, neighbourhoods, and cities to become hospitable, welcoming and inclusive places. Venice, which has always been a place of encounter and cultural exchange, is called to be a sign of beauty available to all, starting with the least, a sign of fraternity and care for our common home. Venice, a land that makes brothers and sisters. Thank you.

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