THE TRUE VINE

 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. 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. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  (Jn 15:1, 4-5, 8)

Here is a chapter from a book of mine, and so it may be a little longer than an ordinary post, but it is a commentary on today's gospel reading (some verses of which are quoted above) that may be of some help to you..

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On my daily walk, I am following Elm Street back to the monastery through the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking  “Ironbound” neighborhood -- so-called because it was once surrounded by railroad tracks. I pass in front of houses separated from one another by narrow alleys, and whose front steps spill directly onto the sidewalk. When I reach the corner of McWhorter St., I see, directly across the street from me, a grape arbor supported by eight heavy vertical pipes connected by a “ceiling” of thinner pipes that form a grid ten feet above a concrete slab below.   

Whenever I pass this intersection on my walk, I notice how the vines marking the changes of the seasons. In winter, for example, there are only the bare pipes and wires, and the three thick vine stocks that function like tree trunks, and from which the vines will branch out. Since this is late spring, lush leaves are already crawling across the overhead wires in long bunches, like giant green caterpillars. 

As I cross the street, I notice that the leafy branches seem to be growing fuller right before my eyes as they burst with new life, sending shoots and tendrils sprouting in every direction. While I pause to rest against the cyclone fence that encloses the arbor, I take a moment to reflect on the scene. 

I immediately think of the image that Jesus offers his apostles at the Last Supper: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” He does not say that he is the vine and they are the grapes, but rather that he is the vine, and they are the branches, the lush, vital growing part of the vine.  

I look at one of the gnarled vine stocks, as thick as the trunk of a small tree, and imagine it sending raw, vital energy through the branches, to the farthest end of the arbor. The stock is the source of the vine’s life, and the branches depend entirely on it, the same way that we draw life from Christ and are intimately one with Him.

I reflect, too, that Jesus tells his apostles: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.” Picturing the heavy clusters of dark purple grapes that will be weighing down these branches in the middle of September, I realize that my goal as a Christian cannot be simply to become a branch that is lush with pretty leaves, any more than one of these branches I’m looking at is meant to produce nothing but leaves. My purpose is the same as that of every branch in this grape arbor: to produce fruit.  

Turning away from the fence to continue my way down Elm Street, I repeat Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.”   I remember that for John, the expression “to glorify God” means  to show forth God’s power in the world, to make his presence known; therefore the fruit I bear must show forth God’s loving presence in the world.

I think of some of the “fruits of the Holy Spirit,” and imagine them flowing from Christ, the vine stock, into us Christians like sap through branches: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and gentleness. The Holy Spirit, which is Christ’s life flowing in us, then enables us to pass on this fruit to everyone we meet. 

As I continue along the street on my way back to the monastery, I start to picture my community as a lush grape arbor springing from one stock, and made up of fourteen branches, each one leafy and laden with clusters of dark purple grapes. I pray that we may help one another to be fruitful, producing whatever fruit the Spirit asks of us.

Following Elm Street across McCarter Highway, I promise myself to pass by the vine arbor again in a few weeks, when the branches will be showing the first tiny grapes.