Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the
vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and
everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already
pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in
you. 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 him will bear much fruit, because
without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown
out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a
fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask
for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father
glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
There is a story about a rich man who does not believe in Jesus, he is a
self-made rich man so to speak. He attributes every success that he has to
himself alone never on Jesus. His friends believed him for they saw how he
worked very hard to achieve his vast fortune. Until he went through a severe
financial misfortune wherein he lost everything that he owned.
In his lowliness and nothingness he suddenly thought of his relative who
was a Eucharistic Minister. He went to him and asked for his wise counsel. He
was advised to always connect with Jesus through his frequent presence in the
Eucharistic celebration/Holy Mass and by regularly reading the bible.
This man who once was very averse to the Holy Mass and the Bible became
a regular Mass attendee and has formed a habit of regularly reading the bible.
True enough, he regained and eventually surpassed everything that he lost.
Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel exhorts us to remain in Him. Why?
Because apart from Him we are nothing, no matter how rich and learned we are.
We are still nothing because we are not connected with Jesus.
The money that we have it can fly away from our possession anytime. The
learning/knowledge that we have, it will escape our mind once we become senile.
But if we remain with Jesus we are assured with something that is way beyond
possession and learning. Time will come that we will leave this world, our
possession neither our knowledge no matter how vast will not be able to give us
eternal life.
There are those who live for today only or for this world only. They
work hard to amass wealth; they seriously study to accumulate learning. Only to
discover that something very important is still lacking in their lives. They
search and endlessly search for it until they end up holding an empty bag
because they’ve not found the true vine that is Jesus.
Let us seriously think about what Jesus wants to convey to us through
our gospel: “Remain in me, as I
remain in you. 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 him will bear much fruit, because
without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5) – Marino J. Dasmarinas
No comments:
Post a Comment