(28 April 2024, 5th Easter Sunday)

1. "Jesus said to his disciples: I am the true vine and my Father is the farmer". Jesus likens the heavenly Father to the passionate farmer for his vineyard that he cares for. But even deeper is this love because Jesus himself is the true vine, thus establishing another metaphor of his union with the Father. We are in the cenacle during the Last Supper after Christ washed the feet of his disciples, an episode that John recounts in place of the institution of the Eucharist. It is not difficult to grasp the Eucharistic reference while speaking of the vine and wine: terms well understood by the culture and spirituality of Israel that throughout the Old Testament recall the covenant between Yahweh and the chosen people. Here then is a Eucharistic meditation that Jesus himself offers us starting precisely from the theme of the covenant. We perceive this in every Eucharistic celebration, for at the very heart of the Mass the priest says showing the chalice: 'Take and drink from it, all of you: this is the cup of my blood for the new and everlasting covenant'. In the Old Testament, the vineyard was a privileged image of this covenant and God's faithfulness is expressed in his constant concern for his people who sometimes respond faithfully but more often abandon and betray the covenant. But he, the farmer, when he is called God, cannot resign himself to the disaster of his vineyard and in the face of all unfaithfulness, he announces that one day the vineyard will return to bear its best fruit, thus promising a new covenant. The prophet Jeremiah speaks: "Days will come when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah" (Jer 31:31-34). A very different covenant from the one once made when God freed the enslaved people in Egypt and led them to the promised land. This time he will engrave it in the heart d as a new law of love: "They shall be my people and I will be their God" (Gr 31:33).

2. At the moment of realising this new covenant with his passion, death and resurrection, Christ speaks of it using the image of the vineyard and he does not even need to pronounce the word covenant because everyone understands: it was clear, for those who wanted to, to understand the reference to the new covenant between God and humanity, a covenant that lasts throughout the centuries and that we can relive every time in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Meditating on today's gospel page in this light, we can warm our faith in the Eucharist. In the dramatic intimacy of the Last Supper, when Judas had decided and was putting into action his plan to hand Jesus over to his enemies, the divine Master says: "I am the true vine and the Father is my farmer". And then, no fewer than seven times, he returns to repeat this invitation with a promptness typical of the concern of one who loves: 'abide in me and I in you', specifying: 'He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing'. How can we fail to grasp in these words a persistent exhortation to live the Eucharist, immersing ourselves in the mystery of its real presence? By repeating seven times "abide in him" Jesus invites us to the full communion that is realised precisely in the Eucharist celebrated, adored and translated into concrete testimony of love. If so many obstacles threaten to weaken our love for Jesus, there is a way that he himself shows us: remain in him, that is, do not allow ourselves to be distracted by anything because it is not frailties or even sins that can distract us from his unchanging love. The persistent and insidious temptation is to disown God by not considering him as Father, for this reason only the constant Eucharistic union with Christ can make us remain and feel always connected to God and in him. By turning away from the Eucharist, one becomes like a branch detached from the vine that withers and dies. Sometimes it is God himself who prunes some branches of our life and we may have the impression that he does not listen to us and does not love us, but every divine pruning, which apparently wounds, is always a sign of his Fatherly love and serves, as every good vine-dresser knows, to make the vine more fruitful and capable of producing tasty and beautiful bunches of grapes. Only by contemplating the consecrated bread and wine and constantly nourishing ourselves with them can we know the true face of God the merciful Father ready to do his will. By adoring the consecrated Host, the human/earthly face of the Holy Trinity, without trying too hard to understand, we can allow ourselves to be embraced by God Infinite Mercy who in Jesus remains with us always. And for those who commit themselves to remain humble and docile disciples of his word, especially in the difficult and dark moments of existence, the promise with which today's Gospel passage closes becomes good news: "ask whatever you want and it will be done to you". And it is precisely to this that the prayer with which today's Eucharistic celebration begins refers: "O God, who in Christ thou hast planted us as branches in the true vine, confirm us in thy Spirit, that by loving one another we may become the firstfruits of a new humanity".

3. The second reading from the first letter of St John the Apostle, where the verbs believe, love, be faithful, do what pleases God, seem to echo and deepen the Gospel text. For St John, faith is not in the order of opinions, but first and foremost a way of being. It is almost natural to think of the evangelical parable of the father who had two sons: he asks the first to go and work in his vineyard and the one replies that he does not want to go, but later he reconsiders, repents and obeys; the same request to the second who promptly replies that he does, but in reality he does not. At this point Jesus asks: which of the two has actually done the will of their father? In other words: who really does God's will? St John refers to the trust that is love and the love that is confidence, teaching us that he loves God not the one who uses fine words and good sentiments, never realised in deeds, but the one who is willing to do whatever pleases God who is recognised and loved as Father. In truth, when the believer lives in harmony with God, his whole existence becomes prayer and is part of the Church's vital dynamism which, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, finds in the liturgy "the summit towards which the Church's action tends and, at the same time, the source from which all its energy flows". Such dynamism is nourished and renewed by the love of God intertwined with the love of men. At the heart of this spiritual vitality that changes the world is always the Eucharist, the culmination not only of the liturgy but of the entire life of the Church, because the Eucharistic mystery is the real and sacramental presence of an infinite love that becomes bread and wine to nourish and fill men's love with courage and joy. In the Eucharist, the commandments, the Words of the Old Covenant, the perennial law of human living, are enlivened by the one source of love: love of God and love of brothers and sisters. And all this is already written in the DNA of the human being, moulded by the Creator in his image and likeness: he has moulded us capable of loving on condition, however, that we remain in God and God in us. The broken bread and the poured wine that we receive in the Eucharistic celebration as food and drink of eternal life, make us capable of becoming bread and gift for our brothers and sisters. This completes and actualises what we meditate on in the Gospel: the Christian faith consists in loving, and love for others is the best way to keep one's heart in peace. He who loves and consecrates his life to the service of his brothers and sisters, especially those in need, is completely decentralised with respect to his own ego, so that he does not even allow himself to be discouraged by his own imperfections and those of others. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, stigmatising the behaviour of those who kept the Mosaic Law but despised others, concludes the parable of the two sons, which I mentioned above, with this remark: "Truly I say to you, publicans and prostitutes pass you by in the kingdom of God" (Mt 21:31). If the Eucharistic celebration is the central focus of God's love continually spreading this love over men, we easily understand that when participation in the Eucharistic celebration does not translate into gestures of love, it is a bad testimony of faith in the God who is Love. A faith that does not encourage brothers and sisters to live is not a faith that feels God as the Father of all the living. How great is the need for witnesses of evangelical love in the face of contradictions and scandals of all kinds in the world!

4. To love is certainly not easy, and it is even impossible to love everyone. God does not ask us to feel love for everyone, but simply to do what we can and he will do the rest.  This is probably precisely the meaning of the words of St John who notes "if our heart reproaches us nothing we trust in God, and whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what is pleasing to him" (1Jn 3:18-24). Ultimately, faith is believing in the love God has for all, a love that relies even on our poor arms, despite the limitations and frailties we must humbly acknowledge and know how to forgive. And if it is love that inspires our every desire for good, life becomes prayer and with humble trust we can ask: 'Our Father...thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. In her 'Autobiography', St Thérèse of the Child Jesus says that she sought her vocation in the Church made up of many members and discovered that charity is the most perfect way that leads safely to God because love embraces all vocations, that love is everything. "Then with great joy and ecstasy of soul I cried out: O Jesus, my love, I have found my vocation at last. My vocation is love".

Happy Sunday to all

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

P.S. In one of his catecheses, Pope Benedict XVI, meditating on this Gospel passage, said that "in chapter 6 [...] we find the discourse on bread, which becomes the great discourse on the Eucharistic mystery", whereas "in this chapter 15 we have the discourse on wine". So: "the Lord does not speak explicitly of the Eucharist, but, of course, behind the mystery of the wine lies the reality that He became fruit and wine for us, that His blood is the fruit of love that is born from the earth forever, and in the Eucharist, His blood becomes our blood, we become new, we receive a new identity, because the blood of Christ becomes our blood. Thus we are related to God in the Son and, in the Eucharist, this great reality of the vine in which we are branches united with the Son and thus united with eternal love becomes a reality'. Clearly, attention to the very element of wine and its symbolism increases understanding of the specific mystery of the Blood of Christ. Again Benedict XVI said: 'wine is a symbol, an expression of the joy of love. The Lord created his people to find the response of his love and so this image of the vine, of the vineyard, has a spousal meaning, it is an expression of the fact that God seeks the love of his creature, he wants to enter into a relationship of love, in a spousal relationship with the world through his chosen people" The symbol of wine has always represented that unnecessary, perhaps even superfluous element of the table, yet only where there is wine is there also joy, where this is lacking does there remain an aggregation of people who perhaps stay together only out of moral duty, but without enthusiasm. In another homily again Pope Benedict XVI specifies that: "bread represents in Holy Scripture everything man needs for his daily life. [...]. Wine, on the other hand, expresses the exquisiteness of creation, it gives us the feast in which we go beyond the limits of the everyday: wine 'gladdens the heart''. In short, while bread gives us the necessities, wine on the other hand represents celebration precisely because it indicates God's superabundance. Here is the reference to Psalm 103 for the explanation of the sacramental elements of the Church, which are all gifts of creation: "wine that gladdens man's heart, oil that makes his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart" (Ps 104:15)