“I am the vine. You are the branches,” we hear Jesus tell his disciples in today’s Gospel. We are those branches now. Connected to the vine that is the Lord, we are expected to bear fruit.
Visualize your family tree. Perhaps your grandparents or great-grandparents are the trunk of the tree, with branches of aunts and uncles and cousins and smaller ones for children and grandchildren. Spouses are grafted onto the tree, with family trees of their own that they bring to your family. Through births and marriages, the family tree grows and grows. And even if your family is very small, we are part of God’s family tree. We are all God’s children and in baptism we were grafted onto that one tree. This tree is a living thing, growing and producing fruit for generations to come.
We are connected to each other like the branches of a vine. All of us are connected to Jesus as the vine itself. As the vine, Jesus gives us support and sustenance, enabling us to bear fruit. We help the vine do this when we put our faith into practice, when we sacrifice ourselves for the least of our sisters and brothers, for they too are connected to the vine. In doing so, we nurture the vine and, as Jesus told his disciples, we glorify God.
Love, Peace, Joy,
Fr. Bob
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