April 28, 2024.
“Christ said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.” (St John 15, 1-5)
The Lord warns us that it is impossible to bear fruit if we are not attached to him. However, he also says that to give fruit we use something as painful as pruning, because, and one must not forget, pruning hurts.
Two are, then, the messages of this “word of life”. The first is that we need to increase our relationship with the Lord if we want to benefit, if we want to evangelize, if we want to help others. The prayer becomes, therefore, an indispensable instrument to do well, to intervene for those who are suffering, to console, to bring about the miracle of stirring the hardest of hearts.
The second message is that we may convert suffering into material for evangelizing, for testimony, to “give fruit”. At times it seems that pain doesn’t serve any purpose and we can’t find an explanation for suffering. However, when we live bond to God and without desperation, we become credible witnesses that attract and who are capable of bringing people closer to God, that which has been capable of avoiding our sinking in a storm of problems. Suffering may be the best fertilizer to give birth to the most splendid harvest that we could ever imagine.
Intentions: Increase prayer and the religious motivation to do things “for you” directed at the Lord. When we suffer we become witnesses that one can be happy with pain.