Tree of Life,
Pacino di Bonaguida, 1310

Readings
Acts 9:26-31
Psalm 22:26-28, 30-32
John 3:18-24
John 15:1-8

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that He is the true vine that God intended Israel to be—the source of divine life and wisdom for the nations (see Sirach 24:17-24).

In baptism, each of us was joined to Him by the Holy Spirit. As a branch grows from a tree, our souls are to draw life from Him, nourished by His word and the Eucharist.

Paul in today’s First Reading seeks to be grafted onto the visible expression of Christ the true vine—His Church. Once the chief persecutor of the Church, he encounters initial resistance and suspicion. But he is known by his fruits, by his powerful witness to the Lord working in his life (see Matthew 7:16-20).

We too are commanded today to bear good fruits as His disciples, so that our lives give glory to God. Like Paul’s life, our lives must bear witness to His goodness.

Jesus cautions us, however, that if we’re bearing fruit, we can expect that God will ‘prune’ us—as a gardener trims and cuts back a plant so that it will grow stronger and bear even more fruit. He is teaching us today how to look at our sufferings and trials with the eyes of faith. We need to see our struggles as pruning, by which we are being disciplined and trained so that we can grow in holiness and bear fruits of righteousness (see Hebrews 12:4-11).

We need to always remain rooted in Him, as today’s Epistle tells us. We remain in Him by keeping His commandment of love, by pondering His words, letting them dwell richly in us (see Colossians 3:16), and by always seeking to do what pleases Him. In everything we must be guided by humility, remembering that apart from Him we can do nothing.

As we sing in today’s Psalm, we must fulfill our vows, turning to the Lord in worship, proclaiming his praises, until all families come to know His justice in their lives.

_________________________

Saint Augustine (354-430)
Commentary on St. John's Gospel, 80, 1; 81, 1.3-4

In the passage of this Gospel where our Lord says that he is the vine and we are the branches, he is speaking as he who is Head of the Church and of us as his members (Eph 5,30) and as «mediator between God and the human race» (1Tm 2,5). For indeed, the vine and its branches share the same nature. It was for this reason that he who was God, of a different nature to our own, became man: so that the human nature he took might be like a vine whose branches we would become...

He said to his disciples: «Remain in me as I remain in you.» However, they were not in him in the same way as he was in them. This mutual union brought him no benefit; the gain was all for them. Branches are inseparably united to the vine yet give it nothing; it is from the vine that they receive their life force. The vine, on the other hand, is united to the branches to communicate its life-giving sap to them without receiving back anything from them. This is how Christ remains in his disciples...

If Christ had not been man he could not have been 'vine'. Yet if he had not also been God he could not have communicated this grace to the branches. Because we cannot live without this grace and because death is in the power of our free will, our Lord adds: «Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into the fire and they will be burned» (Jn 15,6). Hence, if the wood of the vine is worthless when it no longer remains united to the vine, it is all the more glorious when it does so remain.