6th Easter Sunday (year C) [25 May 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us. We walk with swift steps towards the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost.  Jesus' words prepare us to receive the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, Parakletos, an untranslatable Greek word. Five times it appears in the N.T. only in John and the possible meanings are: Defender/Advocate; Comforter; Intercessor/Mediator, Inner Teacher/Spirit of truth. 

*First Reading From the Acts of the Apostles (15:1-2.22-29)

The first Christian communities were faced from the very beginning with a serious crisis that poisoned their existence for a long time. Let me explain: in Antioch of Syria, there were Christians of Jewish origin and Christians of pagan origin, and their coexistence had become increasingly difficult because their lifestyles were too different. Christians of Jewish origin were circumcised and considered those of pagan origin as pagans, and in daily life itself, everything pitted them against each other because of all the Jewish practices to which Christians of pagan origin had no desire to submit: numerous rules of purification, ablutions and above all very strict rules regarding food.  Some Christians of Jewish origin came on purpose from Jerusalem to exacerbate the dispute, explaining that only Jews were admitted to Christian baptism and therefore invited pagans first to become Jews (including circumcision) and then Christians. Three fundamental questions: 1. Is it necessary to have the same ideas, the same rites, the same practices in order to experience unity? 2. The second question was that Christians of all origins wanted to be faithful to Jesus Christ, but concretely, what does this faithfulness consist of? If Jesus was Jewish and circumcised, does this mean that to become a Christian one must first become a Jew like him? Furthermore, is it to Israel that God entrusted the mission to be his witness in the midst of humanity, and therefore one must be part of Israel to enter the Christian community? The conclusion was that one had to be Jewish before becoming a Christian, and concretely it was accepted to baptise pagans on condition that they first had themselves circumcised. 3. Third question, even more serious: is salvation given by God unconditionally or not? If by not accepting circumcision according to the tradition of Moses one cannot be saved, it is like saying that God Himself cannot save non-Jews and we decide instead who can or cannot be saved.  The first council of Jerusalem was convened where there were three positions on the matter: Paul wanted total openness, Peter was rather hesitant, and it was James, bishop of Jerusalem, who came to an agreement with a double decision: 1. Christians of Jewish origin should not impose circumcision and Jewish practices on Christians of pagan origin; 2. on the other hand, Christians of pagan origin, out of respect for their brothers of Jewish origin, should refrain from anything that might disturb their common life, especially during meals. The argument that prevailed over everything was the overcoming of the logic of Israel's election, having entered a new stage of history: the prophet Joel had well said: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Joel 3:5) and Jesus himself: "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved" (Mark 16:16). Everyone means everyone, not just Jews and, even more concretely, being faithful to Jesus Christ does not necessarily mean reproducing a fixed model since faithfulness is not mere repetition. History shows that, through the vicissitudes of humanity, the Church always retains the ability to adapt in order to remain faithful to Christ. Finally, it is interesting to note that only the rules that allow fraternal communion to be maintained are imposed on the Christian community, and this is indicated from the outset as the best way to be truly faithful to Christ who said: "By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35).

*Responsorial Psalm (66 (67) 2-3,5,7-8)

The psalm takes us inside the Temple of Jerusalem while a great celebration is taking place and at the end the priests bless the assembly in a solemn way and the faithful respond: "Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you!" The psalm alternates between the priests' phrases, sometimes addressed to the assembly and sometimes to God, and the assembly's responses, which resemble refrains. The first phrase: "May God have mercy on us and bless us, may he make his face to shine upon us" takes up exactly the famous text from the book of Numbers that is the first reading on 1 January of each year, "The Lord spoke to Moses and said: 'Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them, 'May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine for you and give you grace. May the Lord turn his face to you and grant you peace.' So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them' (Nm 6:24-26). An ideal text for wishes and good wishes because a blessing is a wish for happiness. In fact, blessings are always formulated in the subjunctive: "may God bless you, may God keep you" and yet God knows how to do nothing but bless us, love us, fill us at every moment. So when the priest says 'may God bless you', it is not because God might not bless us, but to arouse our desire to enter into the blessing that, on his part, God continually offers us. It is the same when the priest says "May the Lord be with you": God is always with us and the subjunctive "be" expresses our freedom because we are not always with him; or "May God forgive you": God always forgives us but it is up to us to welcome the forgiveness and enter into the reconciliation that he proposes. Permanent are God's desires for our happiness as Jeremiah states: "For I know the plans I have made for you - the Lord's oracle - plans of peace and not of misfortune, to grant you a future full of hope" (Jer 29:11). God is Love and all his thoughts about us are nothing but desires for happiness. In this psalm, the response of the faithful is the refrain: 'Praise thee, O God, may all nations praise thee! A splendid lesson in universalism: the chosen people reflect the blessing they receive for themselves on the whole of humanity, while the last verse is a synthesis of these two aspects: 'May God bless us (we, his chosen people) And may all the ends of the earth fear him'. Israel does not forget its vocation/mission to the service of all mankind and knows that on its fidelity to the freely received blessing depends the discovery of God's love and blessing by all mankind.

*Second Reading from the Apocalypse of St John (21: 10-14.22-23)

In last Sunday's passage, John said he saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, from near God, ready for the wedding, like a bride adorned for her bridegroom. This time he describes it at length, fascinated by its light so strong that it obscures the glare of the moon and even that of the sun: it resembles a precious jewel, a precious stone sparkling in the light. And he immediately explains the reason for such extraordinary brightness, repeating twice: 'shining with the glory of God', 'the glory of God illuminates it'. These two statements, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the text, with the literary procedure called 'inclusion' that serves to highlight the phrases between the beginning and the end, indicate what strikes John, that is, the glory of God illuminating the holy city that descends from near Him. An angel has transported him to a great and high mountain and is holding his hand as he shows him the city from afar. In his left hand the angel holds a golden rod that he will use to measure the size of the city. The city is square: the number four and the square are a symbol of what is human and indicate here that the city is built by human hand, illuminated by the glory and radiance of God's presence. Since the number three evokes God, it is not surprising that the description of the city abundantly uses a multiple of three and four: twelve, which is a way of saying that God's action is manifested in this human work. In St John's time, a city without walls was not conceived: and this one has them, indeed a wall as great and as high as the mountain, and we know that in the Bible, the mountain is the place of encounter with God. Twelve gates are opened in the wall, which, according to the following text, never close so that all may enter and no one must find a closed gate. The twelve gates, distributed on the four sides of the square, three to the East, three to the North, three to the South, three to the West, are guarded by twelve angels and on each is written the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The people of Israel have in fact been chosen by God to be the gate through which all mankind will enter the final Jerusalem.The wall rests on foundations on which the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are written: as in architecture, there is continuity between the foundations and the walls, so here there is continuity between the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles, and this is a way of saying that the Church founded by Christ fully realises God's plan that unfolds throughout history. Upon entering, John is surprised because he is looking for the Temple, being the living sign that God did not abandon his people, but in the city "I saw no temple" yet he is not disappointed because now "the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. are his temple". He continues: 'The city has no need of the light of the sun nor of the moon, for the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb'. Bearing in mind that in the book of Genesis, from the very first day at creation, light appears: God said, "Let there be light!". And the light was', the statement in Revelation takes on its full weight: the old creation has passed: no more sun, no more moon because we are now in the new creation and God's presence radiates the world through Christ. Jerusalem retains its name and indicates that it is a city built by human hand, a way of saying that our efforts to collaborate in God's project are part of the new creation and human work will not be destroyed, but rather transformed by God. The Christians who were then the recipients of the Apocalypse, were the object of scorn and often persecuted, they needed these words of victory to sustain their faithfulness, and it is good for us too to hear that the heavenly Jerusalem begins with our humble efforts every day.

*From the Gospel according to John (14:23-29)

We relive Jesus' last moments immediately before the Passion: the hour is grave and we can sense the anguish of the apostles from the words of reassurance that Jesus addresses to them several times. At the beginning of this chapter he had said "Let not your heart be troubled" (v. 1). His long discourse was interrupted by several questions from the apostles that revealed their distress and incomprehension. Jesus, however, remains serene: throughout the Passion, John describes him as sovereignly free; indeed, it is he who reassures the disciples as he announces in advance what would happen because when it happens, they would believe. Not only does he know what will happen, but he accepts it and does not try to escape it. He announces his departure and presents it as a condition and beginning of a new presence: I am leaving, but I am coming back to you. This departure of his will only be interpreted after the resurrection as the Passover of Jesus.  John says in chapter 13: "Before the feast of Passover, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father": the evangelist deliberately uses the verb pass, because Passover means passage and with this, he wants to parallel Jesus' Passion with the liberation from Egypt, relived at every Jewish feast of Passover. If it is liberation, this departure must not throw the apostles into sadness: "If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I am going to the Father" (v.28). This is a surprising sentence for the disciples who see the Master now being pursued by the religious authorities, that is, by those who, in the name of God, were held to be the repositories of the truth about what concerns God, and it is they who are Jesus' greatest opponents. The prophets fought against every obstacle to maintain faith in the one God who is both God close to man and God totally Other, the Holy One. Jesus preaches a God who is close to man, especially the little ones, but declares God himself, which in the eyes of the Jews, is blasphemy, an offence against the one God, the Holy One. In this Sunday's text, Jesus insists on the bond that unites him to the Father, whom he names five times, going so far as to speak in the plural: "If anyone loves me...we will come to him, and we will dwell with him". It is not the first time he has said this: a little earlier, to Philip who asked him "Show us the Father", he replied calmly: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), while here he reiterates: "The word you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me". Jesus is the Envoy of the Father, the word of the Father, and from now on the Holy Spirit will make us understand this word and keep it in the memory of the disciples. The key to this text is probably precisely the word "word": it recurs several times and, from what precedes, we understand that this "word" to be guarded is the "commandment of love": love one another, that is, put yourselves at the service of one another and, to be clear, Jesus himself gave a concrete example by washing the disciples' feet. To be faithful to his word therefore simply means to put oneself at the service of others. And today's text: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,' can be translated as follows: If anyone loves me, he will put himself at the service of his neighbour, and anyone who does not love me refuses to put himself at the service of others, so if anyone does not put himself at the service of others, he is not faithful to Christ's word. In this light, the role of the Holy Spirit is better understood: it is he who teaches us to love, reminding us of the commandment of love.  Jesus calls him Paraclete, Defender, because he protects and defends us from ourselves since the worst of evils is to forget that the essence of the gospel is to love one another and to serve one another. In today's first reading, we saw the Defender at work in the first community at the first Council of Jerusalem, where there were serious difficulties of coexistence between Christians of Jewish origin and those of pagan origin, and the Spirit of love inspired the disciples to maintain unity at all costs.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

5th Easter Sunday [18 May 2025]

God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! Already in this first week Pope Leo XIV is giving us, in a calm and profound manner, some marching directions to be well interiorised. I invite you not to miss any of his speeches, all of which are always read out and never delivered off the cuff. Why? It is interesting to seek an answer. Today then there will be the homily of the beginning of his Petrine ministry and therefore in a certain sense programmatic of the pontificate of which he will show the style. 

*First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles (14:21b-27)

From Antioch of Syria, Paul and Barnabas had departed by ship to the south coast of what we today call Turkey, passing through Cyprus; they had stopped at Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium (today Konya), Lystra and Derbe and everywhere, as we saw last Sunday, Paul and Barnabas first addressed the Jews, receiving a rather "mixed" reception. Enthusiasm on the part of some who converted and violent rejection on the part of others who opposed them decisively to the point of driving them out, and it was in Antioch of Pisidia that they decided to address not only the Jews, but also those who were called 'God-fearing', that is, practitioners of the Jewish religion although not yet integrated through circumcision, and therefore, strictly speaking, still pagans. This is why Paul says that God through them had "opened to the Gentiles the door of faith" (v.27).  On the return journey of this first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas retrace the same itinerary in the opposite direction and visit again the communities they had recently founded that were already suffering persecution because Luke specifies that Paul and Barnabas exhorted them to remain steadfast in the faith, saying that we must pass through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God (v.22). Jesus had already used similar expressions: "the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation" (Lk 17:25)... or, addressing the disciples of Emmaus: "Should not Christ have suffered these things in order to enter into his glory?" (Lk 24:26).God does not impose trials or sufferings on us in a preventive manner, but because of the hardness of the human heart, the true prophets encounter persecution until the world is converted to love, justice, and sharing. Paul and Barnabas are therefore concerned to strengthen the faith and courage of the new converts by also watching over the good organisation of the communities. First they appointed leaders, the 'elders', the Greek term 'presbyteros' (from which our term 'priest' derives) and, after praying and fasting, they entrusted them to the Lord. Luke insists on the importance of prayer and fasting because it is not only the organisation that is taken care of, but prayer and fasting are equally important. Indeed, an evangeliser who no longer prays will soon no longer evangelise. Luke notes that they entrusted the leaders of the new communities to the Lord to act with courage and responsibility as Paul and Barnabas had entrusted themselves to the grace of God and continued their journey telling the members of the community of Antioch of Syria all that God had done with them. Luke speaks both of the work that the apostles had done and of what God had done with them, and this makes us realise that the mission entrusted by God to believers is a work of God entrusted to man and a work of man sustained, accompanied, continually inspired by God. 

*Responsorial Psalm (144 (145), 8-13)

Of Psalm 144 (145), chosen for this fifth Sunday of Easter, there are only six verses here, while in total there are twenty-one as many letters as there are letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It is an alphabetical psalm, an acrostic, and each verse begins with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order. It is therefore a psalm of praise for the covenant: a way of saying that our whole life, from A to Z (in Hebrew from aleph to tav), is immersed in God's covenant and tenderness. But why this Psalm 144 (145) today and why only these six verses? First of all, this psalm is part of the Jewish prayer of every morning, and the dawning of a new day evokes for the believing Jew the dawning of the final day, of the future world and renewed creation. For us Christians, at this Easter time, the psalm reminds us that the Day of God's final kingdom has already begun, before our eyes, with the resurrection of Christ. Moreover, in Jewish spirituality, the Talmud (i.e. the teaching of the rabbis of the first centuries after Christ) states that he who recites this psalm three times a day "may be certain to be a child of the future world". For us Christians, the future world of which the Jewish faith speaks is precisely the creation renewed by Jesus Christ, and the six verses chosen for today constitute a condensation of this revelation, and the psalm harmonises perfectly with the tones of the Easter season, in particular, with the other readings of this Sunday.  The first verse: "Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and great in love" is the best summary of all biblical revelation: in fact, it is the name God gave of himself to Moses (Ex 34:6).The second verse: 'Good is the Lord towards all, his tenderness is spread over all creatures' is an enormous discovery for mankind that we owe precisely to the chosen people; a theme already present in the Old Testament: God loves all mankind and his plan of love, as St Paul says, concerns the whole of humanity. We sense a particular resonance of this in the Acts of the Apostles and especially in the first reading of this Easter Sunday, which insists that the proclamation of God's love is not reserved for the Jews, but is for all nations. Furthermore, this psalm, especially in the verses read today, insists on God's kingship: 'To make known to men your deeds and the splendid glory of your kingdom, your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, your dominion extends to all generations'. Four times the word "kingdom" returns (once "dominion") and the words "deeds" and "exploits", which in the Bible always refer to the liberation from Egypt: God liberated his people then and liberates them now, and this until the final liberation, which is the victory over death. A psalm therefore particularly suited to the Easter season because the Risen One experiences God's kingship in his flesh. When Israel composed this psalm, the insistence on God's kingship, or his dominion, was a way of affirming that they would never rely on idols because their only King and Lord is God, the God of love. When Christians pray this psalm, they know well that in Christ, the servant king, humble in the Passion and triumphant over death, they see the presence of the King of the universe: "He who has seen me has seen the Father," Jesus told the apostles (Jn.14:9).

NOTE: Reading the entire psalm one notices a profound similarity with the Lord's Prayer: one addresses God as Father - "Our Father... give us... forgive us... deliver us from evil..." - a Father who is the God of mercy and pity as the psalm expresses it. He is also addressed as King: 'Thy Kingdom come'.  In fact, all the phrases that Jesus collected in the Lord's Prayer were already part of the customary prayers of the Jewish people

Depending on whether one counts the sign Sin/Shin as one or two letters (the same symbol is sometimes pronounced Sin, sometimes Shin), one would count 21 or 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Grammarians distinguish the two letters Sin and Shin and the alphabet counts 22 letters, but the psalmist uses only the letter Shin and therefore the psalm counts 21 verses.

*Second Reading from the Book of Revelation of Saint John (21:1-5a)

"Behold, I make all things new": a new heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem; this is our future, our "a-coming", that is, what is to come. Gone are the tears, the death, the groans, the cries, the sadness... all this belongs to the past: the first heaven and the first earth are gone. In other words, the past is past, accomplished. John warned us: his book is a book of visions, revealing the future to give courage to face the present. The first heaven and the first earth refer back to the biblical account of creation and to understand this passage of Revelation we must refer back to the book of Genesis which in the first chapter presents "the first creation" of which Revelation states that it was totally good: "God saw what he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). Despite this, however, every day we see tears, cries, sadness, death as Revelation repeats and the cause lies in the account of the forbidden fruit (Gen.3) explaining what corrupted the goodness of creation. The root of all suffering is the rift created between God and mankind with the original suspicion that destroys the Covenant and drives mankind down paths that only lead to failure. The chosen people heard, through the prophets, the call to the way of the Covenant which is the only way to true happiness. It is necessary for God to truly dwell among us so that we may be His people, and He may be our God. Restoring the Covenant as a dialogue of love is Israel's thirst throughout its history, and many prophets announce what the author of Revelation now sees fulfilled. Isaiah writes: "Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth...the past shall no longer be remembered, it shall no longer come to mind...There shall no longer be heard in it voices of weeping, nor cries of distress...There shall no longer be a child who lives but a few days, nor an old man who does not complete his days" (Isaiah 65:17-20). But why symbolically is the renewal of all things represented by the disappearance of the sea even though Israel is not a people of sailors? The reason is that the creation of the universe, in the Bible, is read from the birth of the chosen people, and this birth, i.e. the coming out of slavery in Egypt, was a victory over the sea: God made the land appear dry to allow the passage of his people; the saved people crossed the sea on foot and the forces of evil, slavery and oppression were swallowed up. Later, in the New Testament, the Son of God made man manifested his victory over evil and its forces by walking on water. Now the victory is total, the Apocalypse suggests: the sea has disappeared and with it every form of evil: suffering, crying, death. Humanity and the entire universe await the fulfilment of the plan that God had when he created the world: to establish with humanity a Covenant without shadows, an eternal dialogue of love as it appears in the theme of the wedding between God and humanity always present in the Bible. One thinks of the prophets Hosea or Isaiah and the Song of Songs, and in the New Testament, the wedding story of Cana, to name but one. Here, in our passage from Revelation, this promise emerges from two images: that of the new Jerusalem, "ready as a bride adorned for her husband" (v.2) and from the expression "God with them" (v.3) where "with" expresses the covenant of love, a spousal covenant. "Then I heard a mighty voice, coming from the throne, saying, 'Behold the tent of God with men! He will dwell with them and they will be his people and he will be the God-with-them" (v.3. ). Moreover, the centre of the new creation bears the name of the holy city - 'behold, the new Jerusalem "descends from God"' - the city that for centuries has symbolised the expectation of the chosen people, and the very name Jerusalem means 'City of justice and peace' 'descending from God' and for this reason is called 'new'. The new Jerusalem is not just a human work because the kingdom of God, which we await and in which we seek to collaborate, is at the same time in continuity and in rupture with this land. We are therefore invited to collaborate with God and our efforts contribute to the renewal of creation through God's intervention that will transfigure our efforts.We also perceive this in St Paul's letter to the Romans: "The sufferings of the present time are not comparable to the future glory that will be revealed in us. For the ardent expectation of creation is directed towards the revelation of the sons of God...for creation too will be delivered from the bondage of corruption, to enter into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. For we know well that the whole creation groans and suffers until now in labour pains" (Rom 8:19-22).

*From the Gospel according to John (13:31- 35)

The first sentences of this text are like variations on the theme of "glory":

"When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him, and will glorify him now': all this may seem a little complicated to us, but in fact it is a very Jewish way of speaking: it expresses the reciprocity of the relationship between the Father and the Son, or rather their profound union: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father', writes John (14:8) and again: 'I and the Father are one' (10:30). "The Son of Man is glorified, or God is glorified in him", means that the Son is a reflection of the Father and we note once again how much effort is required to understand the language of Jesus and his contemporaries.  At the very moment when Judas goes out on the night of the betrayal, Jesus fulfils his vocation to be the reflection of the Father. But John did not understand this immediately because together with the apostles they had helplessly witnessed his passion and death; they had experienced this succession of events as a moment of horror and only later did John understand that this was in fact the moment of Jesus' glory: because it was there that the Son revealed how far the Father's love reaches. And since the Son betrayed, abandoned, persecuted by all, he alone continues against all, to be only love, kindness, forgiveness, he reveals to the world how far the Father's love reaches, an infinite love. And then - and this is the second part of our text - those who contemplate this mystery of God's mad love become capable in their turn of loving like him. Jesus in fact clearly connects the two things: he says that now he will reveal to the world how far the Father's love goes and he specifies: "now I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you", but he also adds that only now will you be able because you will draw on my own love. In reality, the novelty is not the commandment to love; Jesus does not invent the commandment of love that already exists in the teaching of the rabbis of his time. What is new is to love like him, but not only "in his way", that is, to the point of giving one's life, rejecting all power, dominion and violence. What is new is to love 'really like him', that is, being completely led by his Spirit. Only thus can we understand in a completely new way the famous phrase: "By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another". This is not just a commandment, but rather a statement: we are truly his disciples because it is his own Spirit that guides our behaviour. God knows how difficult everyday love is, and if we succeed in our communities in loving one another, the world will be forced to admit this evidence: that the Spirit of Christ is at work in us. We are therefore first of all invited to an act of faith: to believe that his Spirit of love dwells in us, that his resources of love dwell in us: that we possess unsuspected capacities to love, because they are his, and then it becomes possible to love 'like' him, because we allow his Spirit to act in us. However, we know from experience that it is not at all easy to love those around us, indeed with some it is even impossible to speak of love and forgiveness. Jesus certainly did not ignore this when he commanded his disciples to love one another; but we must not confuse love and sensitivity. Jesus showed with gestures of what love we must love one another when at the Last Supper he washed the feet of the apostles and concluded by saying: 'I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you'. This, then, is what it means to love 'as' he loved us! If we think about it, it is possible by his Spirit to serve one another, even those for whom we feel no sympathy. But faithfulness to this commandment is vital for us because it is by this that our communities are judged. For Jesus, the most important thing is not the quality of our speeches, our theology and knowledge, nor the beauty of our celebrations, but the quality of the love we offer one another. Jesus cried out on that last dramatic evening: "Now the Son of Man has been glorified (i.e. revealed as God), and God has been glorified in him. Humanity is introduced into the glory, the presence, the life of God, through the event of Christ's passion-death-resurrection. And now introduced into God's 'glory' (i.e. Christ's sacrifice), his disciples can live entirely under the sign of love, since God is love and his presence shines through them as well. All we have to do is believe it and let the Spirit work in us.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

(Jn 15:1-8)

The allegory of the vine and the branches describes the Presence of the Lord in the midst of His own. He is the source of intimate life and works.

The imperative to believe in Him (c.14) becomes a requirement to ‘abide’ in Him [cf. Jn 6:56: Eucharistic theme of the ‘one body’].

Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches to convey a teaching on familiarity with Him and fraternity among disciples, illustrating the profound bond.

Intimate union, common nourishment, solidarity, continuity of the friendship, require careful and constant work, including «cutting and cleaning» because not all shoots and sprouts bear fruitfulness.

But beware: divine Love is an impulse that demands that we “allow ourselves to be carried”. It drags; it takes us and becomes nourishing Sap. It invests us, purifying us.

It’s not a dimension to be understood as an “effort” (basically ours) but as a... being grasped and becoming involved in the motion of the life of Grace.

Jesus invites us to take care of the codes of interiority: to take from them the resolute impulse to which we entrust our choices, and which has already guided us to grow.

In the Gospel passage the Creator-peasant «cuts and purifies», to rekindle this personal ‘understanding’.

Jesus speaks of «the Vine the real one» (v.1): He alone is the authentic Bud of the People planted by the Father.

It means that deviant teachings were inculcated around, and false “vines” were planted or displayed [like the fabulous one filled with golden pampins, on the door of the inner Sanctuary of the Jerusalem’s Temple].

The lifeblood does not flow from riches, nor from doctrines and disciplines - not even from the great, impressive magnificence of the old cult.

And the farmer’s interest is that the Vine brings more and more «Fruit»: Love, nothing else.

Christ's «abiding» in the disciples, His ‘union’ with each one, is essential to live the same divine life on earth.

Faith-love ‘incorporates’ and is contagious.

Where it meets with resistance, it is precisely this obstacle that will incite it to greater purity, hence to more vigour (v.2).

For this reason He first «Cuts off» what was lush in the past but would no longer give anything.

We realize this in the time of the crisis, which unmasks and overturns nagging and importunate positions that deaden development.

Then he «Purifies» (v.2: Greek text) i.e. He proceeds, as the good peasant does, to a second light pruning of the shoots of the vine; by detaching those that absorb sap but thicken too much and lack proper vitality [so as not to deprive the propulsive points of nourishment].

This passage has often been interpreted as an invitation par excellence to embrace a spirituality of 'pruning' [the term in the Gospels does not exist] that makes no sense from the perspective of Faith, that is, of Love.

In traditional religions it is the subject - the «branch» - that has to focus on himself, to identify the shortcomings, defects and vices, and “lopping”, "trimming” them.

Instead, only the Father-farmer knows how to recognize the harmful elements, those parasitic ones and without a future, that are not worth continuing to support.

Life in Christ does not settle us on an image of sterile external perfection, which God is not interested in.

A spontaneous Power, the mystery of vocational roots, the multi-layered work of a radical essence, innate, that accompanies us, are able to feed and correct any geometry at the desk.

It’s the Father that takes care of the hindrances, not the individual branch or other branches.

In this way - by giving up external dirigisme - we will not produce irreparable damage.

To internalize and live the message:

Which Lymph satiates you, the external one? What mundane, normal geometry do you follow? What is your idea of improvement in the Faith?

[Wednesday 5th wk. in Easter, May 21, 2025]

(Jn 15:1-8)

The allegory of the vine and the branches describes the Presence of the Lord in the midst of his own. He is the source of intimate life and works.

The imperative to believe in Him (c.14) becomes a requirement to abide in Him [cf. Jn 6:56: Eucharistic theme of the "one body"].

The vine is a plant that demands much attention. In the biblical texts it is taken as a symbol of God's care for His people, and conversely its destruction depicted ancient national calamities.

Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches to convey a teaching on familiarity with Him and fraternity between disciples, illustrating the deep bond.

Intimate union, common nourishment, solidarity and the continuity of the bond require careful and constant work, including cutting and pruning, because not all shoots and sprouts bear fruitfulness.

But beware: divine Love is an impulse that demands that we allow ourselves to be carried. It drags; it takes us and becomes nourishing sap. It invests us, purifying us.

It is not a dimension to be understood as an effort (essentially ours) but as a ... being grasped and becoming involved in the motion of the life of Grace.

In comparison with the allusions of the First Testament, one notices a substitution: although the vine-dresser continues to represent the Father, the vine is no longer a figure of the people, but of Jesus.

And 'bearing fruit' is a frequent expression indicating only Love: the true result that God expects, the unique work to be achieved in all our works.

Christ's abiding in the disciples, his union with each one, is essential to living the same divine life on earth.

Faith-love incorporates and is contagious. Where it encounters resistance, it is this very obstacle that will incite it to greater purity, hence to greater vigour (v.2).

The man, on the other hand, left to himself does not prolong the influence of Christ; he does not overcome the barriers of nomenclature and normality.

He who imagines himself to be self-sufficient - by breaking the union - cracks the Mystery that envelops him, and will fall prey to his own festering clusters.

But it is also true that a well-bred vineyard is intrusive by its very nature: it blatantly demonstrates a full willingness to express... love (fruit, taste, life).

In short, if mission is marking time today, it is because it has already lost its dynamic vitality: adaptation plans or narratives and external reform will not suffice to resurrect it.

It is the vital encounter that brings out the waves of strength and friendliness.

Over the years, the Vocation has guided and led us to a personal way of being and a characterising sphere of relationships.

Still the Lord continues to call us, so that by entering into his language [unrepeatable, commensurate with each story and sensitivity] we are removed from conditioning that does not belong to us.

Jesus invites us to take care of the codes of interiority, and from them to assume the resolute impulse to which we entrust our choices and which has already guided us to grow.

From the dawn of our history and personality, He alone continues to be the intimate and gushing source of development - even of the imprints we had withheld.

If we had relied on externality, the soul would have dissipated its sap, losing the essence that belonged to it and specified it.

Thus we would not have encountered ourselves and would never have nourished ourselves with the most efficient constituent resources, which now together give balance, greater wholeness, the ability to judge in a situation, amiable transparency.

One becomes oneself, one becomes a well-rounded person, one becomes a missionary, in the same way: by understanding that a lymph, a stimulus, runs through one's veins, which comes from One who knows more than us and opinions.

There are plants in the undergrowth, others towering up; still others, sneaking into the empty areas and mysteriously left to the full light are growing at a much faster rate than those that have been planted and installed for a long time - habitués to the point of seeming homologated.

The magic of creation - vines, shoots - speaks of another realm, of a Logos that relates to us and wisely directs its flows and life forces.

This is what happens in the Spirit, which internalises, calls, nurtures, transmits balance or prophecy, and generates the awe of wholeness and oneness.

How did those seeds (in the example I have in front of me, a double pine and a single pine) take root in precisely the right, intermediate and characteristic places - both aesthetically and in terms of utility, density and breadth? Not even I could have thought of them so neatly arranged; so perfectly aligned in proportion, size, volume and scale.

Only the Hidden Ally sees well the whole, the structure, the functionality and the details of our fibres.

He knows where to lead, and how to nourish us to regain the Ego, the qualitative unity of being.

He does this by sowing, injecting, regenerating, calibrating the energy of his and our Dream. At a convenient pace, and taking care of the rational utilitarian banality of our projects. 

Unceasingly refocusing personal bearing, self-awareness, spontaneous inclination.

As well as by detaching the soul from those who in a thousand ways want to leave us in ignorance of the Creatural Way, to hold on to the commonplaces and totems of their habitual, unnerving world.

This while the Spirit separates our multifaceted thinking from false, one-sided guides [old-fashioned and narrow-minded, or hysterical and sophisticated, but disembodied].

The top of the class perhaps stalk, press, and plagiarise, distracting us from the non-conformist Dialogue with the unrepeatable task of personal life.

In the Gospel passage, the Creator-farmer cuts and purifies, to reconnect.

Jesus speaks of "Vine the true one" (v.1): He alone is the authentic seed of the People planted by the Father.

He means that deviant teachings were being inculcated around, and false vines were being buried or displayed - like the fabulous one filled with golden vines on the door of the inner sanctuary of the Temple of Jerusalem.

The lifeblood does not flow from riches, nor from doctrines and disciplines - not even from the grand, impressive magnificence of the old cult. 

Not even from spineless, à la page fantasies.

The Farmer's interest is that the Vine bears more and more Fruit i.e. Love, nothing else.

In such a trajectory, the Farmer who knows what to do, 'cuts' (v.2) [also so that there are no gangs, no organised marpions. They who absorb the energies of his people [milked and sheared] without the slightest thought of communicating - in turn - authentic life to others.

First they 'cut off' what was thriving in the past but would no longer give anything.

We realise this in the time of the crisis, which unmasks and overturns nagging and importunate positions, mortifying development.

Then he "purifies" (v.2: Greek text), that is, he proceeds as the good peasant does, to a second light pruning of the shoots of the vine; detaching those that absorb sap but thicken too much and do not have the right vitality [so as not to take nourishment away from the propulsive points].

This passage has often been interpreted as an invitation par excellence to embrace a spirituality of 'pruning' [the term in the Gospels does not exist] that makes no sense from the perspective of Faith, that is, of Love.

In ancient religions, it is the subject - the "branch" - that has to focus on itself, identify its shortcomings, faults and vices, and "prune" them.

In contrast, only the Father-farmer knows how to identify the harmful elements, the parasitic ones with no future, which are not worth continuing to support.

He acts in the reality of our path, as one would do with an antiquated and intimately corrupt papier-mache construction [as well as, with fashionable fantasies, which lead to emptiness].

Life in Christ does not concern itself with external limits, indeed it avoids making the [renegade!] flaws of the spiritual life the protagonists.

Such a configuration would be obsessive, inconclusive, because settled on an image of sterile 'perfection' that God is not interested in.

Rather, it will be an astonishment to observe how on the path of Faith precisely the uncertain souls, their unsteady steps and sides considered obscure, can hide the true Pearls of the world.

A spontaneous Power, the mystery of images that spring from the depths of vocational roots and reactivate energies; the multi-layered work of a radical, innate essence that accompanies us [immanent being and knows more about it than we do] are energies all capable of nourishing and correcting any geometry at the table.

How not to produce irreparable damage? By giving in to external dirigisme.

The Father takes care of the impediments, not the individual branch, nor other branches - veterans, experts, veterans that is.

Though higher, bigger... elected to life, they would not provide the right vital mood, nor organic bonding: they would only present us with buried content, and the bill.

To internalise and live the message:

Which lymph satiates you, the external one?

What mundane, normal geometry do you follow?

What is your idea of improvement in the Faith?

The image of the vineyard with its moral, doctrinal and spiritual implications was to recur in the discourse at the Last Supper when, taking his leave of the Apostles, the Lord said: "I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit" (Jn 15: 1-2). Thus, starting from the Paschal event, the history of salvation was to reach a decisive turning point and those "other tenants" were to play the lead as chosen shoots grafted on Christ, the true vine, and yield abundant fruits of eternal life (cf. Collect). We too are among these "tenants", grafted on Christ who desired to become the "true vine" himself. Let us pray the Lord that in the Eucharist he will give us his Blood, himself, that he will help us to "bear fruit" for eternal life and for our time.

[Pope Benedict, Homily XII Synod 5 October 2008]

The parable of the vine and the branches highlights, in a special way, that bond, in a certain sense 'organic', that exists between Christ and the Church: between Christ and all those who draw life from him, just as the branch draws life from the vine.

This refers to each individual man, and at the same time it refers to the entire community of God's people: to the Church.

The whole Church - as a rich 'whole' of branches remains in Christ: in the vine. From him it draws life. "Without him it can do nothing": nothing truly salvific.

All salvation, all grace, is found in him: in Christ. And in us: in men, from him, and only by him and through him.

2. Let us give thanks today to the eternal Father, 'for the Father is the vinedresser', for this life that has been revealed to us and given to us, men, in Jesus Christ crucified and risen.

We give thanks for the paschal mystery, in which Christ revealed himself once and for all as the vine, and at the same time revealed his Father as the one who cultivates.

We desire that every man, every Christian, may mature as the "divine cultivator" of the Father - in the Son - in the risen Christ.

We desire that each one, through this "organic" bond with him, bears much fruit.

3. And it is precisely this prayer of ours that we wish to present to the Mother of Christ, inviting her - laetare! - to the Easter joy of the Church.

May she help us to abide in her Son: in Christ the vine, that we may constitute with him one body, vivified by the Spirit of Easter Pentecost.

[Pope John Paul II, Regina Coeli, 5 May 1985]

The Lord presents himself as the true vine, and speaks of us as branches that cannot live without being united to him. He says: “I am the vine, you are the branches” (v. 5). There is no vine without branches, and vice versa. 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, it is not this. The abiding in him, the abiding in Jesus that he proposes to us is to abide actively, and also reciprocally. Why? Because the branches can do nothing without the vine, they need sap to grow and to bear fruit; but the vine, too, needs the branches, because 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 tell us that before the observance of his commandments, before the beatitudes, before works of mercy, it is necessary to be united to him, to abide in him. We cannot be good Christians if we do not abide in Jesus. With him, instead, we can do all things  (cf. Phil 4:13). With him we can do all things.

But Jesus needs us too, like the vine with the branches. Perhaps to say this may seem bold to us, and so let us ask ourselves: in what sense does Jesus need us? He needs our witness. The fruit that as branches we must bear, is the witness of our lives as Christians. After Jesus ascended to the Father, it is the task of the disciples — it is our task — 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 thus 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 achieve 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, love our brothers and sisters, starting from the poorest and those who suffer most, like he did, loving them with his heart and bringing 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.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 2 May 2021]