The Gospel passage for today follows closely on the heels of the last two days as we have been dwelling on the image of the vine and the branches.
We all lived through the heady days immediately after the Second Vatican Council which brought with it a desire to expose all of us to a wider understanding of the Scriptures. My own memories of that time remind me of the fact that St. John’s Gospel with its insistence on loving one another as Jesus had loved us seemed to be more prominent in our praying and in our preaching. Indeed, preaching and teaching the love commandment of the fourth Gospel can be salutary in a culture where the currency of love has been debased. The term is used to cover everything from steamy bedroom scenes on TV through countless novels based on love triangles and lyrical poems about romantic love to exalted examples of selfless love in art, literature, and Scripture. In such a confusion of tongues about love, the clear voice of Jesus on the subject can satisfy a deep hunger of the heart.
The image of the vine and the branches with its associated love commandment is St. John’s equivalent of St. Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ. We are all part of one body and are dependent upon Christ, the head of the body, as well as upon one another with our different ministries and functions within the Church. Just as we cannot do anything without Jesus, we also cannot exist as a community without each other. The love commandment embodies everything that the Hebrew Scriptures envision in the two greatest commandments: love God and love your neighbor.
The purpose of this teaching, then, is to bring true joy into our lives, the joy that Jesus experienced in doing the will of his Father. This is the reason for which Jesus hands on this metaphor and the reason for which he chose us. Christian joy is the gift that we receive if we live and remain in this love.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator