Friday (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate. Rejoice and be Glad)
the lack of a heartfelt and prayerful acknowledgment of our limitations prevents grace from working more effectively within us, for no room is left for bringing about the potential good that is part of a sincere and genuine journey of growth. ... we need to live humbly in his presence, cloaked in his glory; we need to walk in union with him, recognizing his constant love in our lives. We need to lose our fear before that presence which can only be for our good. God is the Father who gave us life and loves us greatly. Once we accept him, and stop trying to live our lives without him, the anguish of loneliness will disappear (cf. Ps 139:23-24). In this way we will know the pleasing and perfect will of the Lord (cf. Rom 12:1-2) ...So often we say that God dwells in us, but it is better to say that we dwell in him, that he enables us to dwell in his light and love.
Scripture(John 15, 1-5,7-8)
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are pruned already by means of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in them, bears fruit in plenty. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for whatever you please and you will get it. It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit and be my disciples.
5th Week of Easter
I am the vine, your home / church / workplace is a branch
Reading Jesus talk of him being the vine and his followers being the branches raises a fundamental question: what remains uppermost in your mind?Is it being cut away and burned if you don’t bear fruit, or being a branch that is part of the vine?The answer probably says a lot about your understanding of God (and your relationship with him). It’s the difference between ‘God is watching, keeping a tally of what you do. Behave.’ and ‘Today, God is in you. Rejoice.’ I imagine that making this claim would have been considered blasphemous by the Sanhedrin in Jesus’ time, and in the early church, and I’m not sure that I really dare to believe it fully myself, but Jesus is quite clear that ‘whoever remains in me, with me in them, bears fruit in plenty.’ It is a magnificent and joyful truth.It is also a disruptive truth which does not allow me a complacent ‘I’ve got it now’ because a branch grows and is pruned. There is always the temptation to settle into habits and to build up routines and rituals which can, if we aren’t careful, come to dominate our faith life. The followers Jesus spoke to had been pruned by his word, i.e. by his teachings, which cut straight to the essentials – love God, love neighbour.Ensuring we are always listening to God’s word (prayer, scripture, daily life) is essential if we are going to be pruned and to bear fruit. Without listening to him, we will settle into comfortable routines and, perhaps, a rather automatic ‘tick box’ religion of fulfilling duties and mechanically obeying rules. a religion of fear, or a religion of love.
The author of 1John (3:18-24) emphasises this in saying that our love must be genuine. It has to be God’s love in us, the vine feeding the branches. For too long, I have thought that I have to earn God’s love, (by fulfilling religious duties, doing good etc). This is not how a branch thinks! If I start with ‘I’m loved by God. He has given me all’, I will be more open to the relationship he offers, more able to grow in this relationship.
There is an example of this openness in Acts 9:26-31, with the Jerusalem disciples initially not accepting the recently converted and much feared Saul, but then trusting Barnabas’ mediation. The very conservative (unpruned and overgrown)Hellenist Jews, though, cannot accept what Saul brings: they refuse to accept his witness about Jesus.
We are a church which is largely left in peace,as was the case with the early church after Paul had been removed from the scene, but are we in a phase where we are continuing to build ourselves up and, filled with the Holy Spirit, bearing fruit? In his latest Exhortation,‘Rejoice and be Glad’, Pope Francis offers challenging and inspiring guidelines as to how we (individually in the home and workplace, and as a church) can answer this truthfully. Hearing the word of God in Mass and in prayer, and in daily life (if we have ears to hear) should not leave us feeling settled in our ways and ideas: we will be constantly pruned. If we take seriously that we are in communion with Jesus through the Eucharist, then we should be aware of him in us and us in him: we are the branches and will bear fruit, or rather, he will bear fruit in us.
It is worth noting the huge importance of the seemingly incidental character, Barnabas, without whom the community would not have accepted Paul, and our church today would have been very different. In Acts 4 we meet him as someone who, along with many others, responds wholeheartedly to the Holy Spirit; he could not have known how significant his ’fruits’ would be; he simply responded to the Spirit. Being part of the vine for me is more likely to be a Barnabas rather than a Paul. Martin Bennett
Monday(Bede Griffiths)
The church was originally a community of the Spirit. People who received the gift of the Spirit, of which contemplation is a type, dedicated their lives to prayer. Neither serving nor preaching is good if you are not praying. If you have not got Christ within you, you cannot give him to others. You can put words and doctrines before people, but this is not preaching the gospel. It is only when you have the gospel and Christ within that you can
communicate it to others.
Scripture(1 Thessalonians 2:12-13)
We urge you and appeal to you to live a life worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and his glory. Another reason why we continually thank God for you is that as soon as you heard the word that we brought to you as God’s message, you welcomed it for what it really is, not the word of any human being, but God’s word, a power that is working among you
believers.
Tuesday(Jean Vanier)
The more a community grows and gives life, the deeper its roots must grow into its own soil. Expansion has to be accompanied by deepening. The more a tree grows, the stronger its roots must be, otherwise it will be uprooted by the first storm. Jesus speaks of a house built on sand. A community’s solid foundation is in the heart of God. It is God who is at the source of the community and the more it grows and expands, the more it needs people who stay close to this source.
Scripture (1 John 3: 18,21-24)
Our love must not be just words or mere talk, but something active and genuine. If our own feelings do not condemn us, we can be fearless before God, and whatever we ask we shall receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what is acceptable to him. His commandment is this, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we should love each other as he commands us. Whoever keeps his commandments remains in God, nd God in them. We know that God lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us
Wednesday (Carlo Carretto)
We must eliminate, or at least reduce, the tensions between action and contemplation, apostolate and prayer. People say, ‘I’m too busy with work to find time for prayer.’ This betrays a very serious shortcoming: it radically underestimates the value of human activity. It gives the impression that professional, social and family life is totally separate from prayer and the life of the soul. This betrays a sad confusion and is the product of an age with no proper theology of the laity. Furthermore, it is based on a ‘disincarnate’ piety. The first thing I must understand and believe is that my work is of enormous value, that the duties incumbent on me as a human being are holy because they are willed by God and I fulfil them in obedience to his Law.
Scripture (Ephesians 4:1-13, 15-16)
To some, his ‘gift’ was that they should be apostles; to some, prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers; to knit God’s holy people together for the work of service to build up the Body of Christ, until we all reach unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God and form the prefect Man fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow completely into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole body Is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength for each individual part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up in love.
Thursday(Fr. Michael Ivens, SJ)
Humility, generosity and spiritual poverty are often sought in relation to an individualistic concept of perfection. In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, on the contrary, they are sought in relation to the call made to every Christian to the service of the kingdom, a service which is a sharing in Christ’s own continuing mission in the world. To imitate Christ, to lead the true life, and to grow in its qualities, one must be associated in this mission, not only by sharing Christ’s work, but, at least as a desired ideal, by being involved in the very pattern of vulnerability and powerlessness which embodied his self-emptying.
Scripture (1Peter 1:15-17,21-22,25)
As obedient children be holy in all your activity, after the model of the Holy One who calls us. And if you address as Father him who judges without favouritism according to each individual’s deeds, live out your time in reverent awe. Since by your obedience to the truth you have purified yourselves so that you can experience the genuine love of brothers, love each other intensely from the heart, for your new birth was not from any perishable seed but from imperishable seed, the living and enduring Word of God. And this Word is the Good News that has been brought to you.