Show Notes
Fr. Pat O'Connor joined us for Mass this weekend. The readings for the weekend spoke of connection, and to illustrate that, he brought a heavy-duty chain.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the holy gospel according to John Glory to you, Lord Jesus said to his disciples, I am the true vine and my father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does, he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to. You 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.
Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither people will gather them and throw them into a fire, and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you by this is my father, glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
The gospel of the Lord. Praise you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Just a little crowd control and crates we break into a rumble.
And I'm not trying to channel Jacob Marley from a Christmas carol either.
I know I'm old, but I don't think I'm rotten yet.
There is an adage about the chain.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
That being said, if you want to make the chain strong, then you remove that link.
But if you test the chain again, there's going to be another link, and so on and so on and so on, until there's only one link, and that ain't a chain.
This weekend's readings are speaking about connection.
That first reading from the acts of the apostles shows us and reminds us that Paul was treating the christianized Jews as weak links.
They were destroying Judaism because they followed the way, and he was ready and willing to remove each and every link until his conversion.
And then he realizes now he wants to be connected.
And it takes efforts of others, Barnabas for one, to bring him into the fold.
In that second reading from John's letter, he's talking about, you don't just say things, you need to do things if you are a believer.
If you were listening closely, we heard the word remain ten times, twice in the letter of John and eight times in the Gospel.
Understanding where this gospel fits.
This is a part of the Last Supper discourse.
This is chapter 15.
But in chapter 13, Jesus washed the feet of all the disciples and then gave them the command, as I have done, you must also do.
He also predicted his betrayer and his denier, but he's not giving up on them.
He says, remain in me as I remain in you.
And notice that he points out that the father is the vine grower.
The father is the only one who makes the decision that a branch is worthless, not even Jesus.
And any branch that is worth anything needs to be trimmed back.
I would venture to guess that all of us in this room have little things that should be trimmed out of our lives, habits and attitudes, that we would be more alive and more fruitful if we gave them up and over.
So as we come here today, we need to be reminded of that, that we are called to be connected. The word remain actually comes from two french words, manere and reaction. Manere means to stay and re the prefects, to stay back.
In other words, abide to be with.
And I don't mean on your cell phone to be with, because the image of a vine shows us and branches, they are all twisted up and connected and touching.
That's the image that Jesus uses for disciples.
And then we're supposed to bear much fruit.
So if you can trust Wikipedia, I googled how many varieties of grapes are there.
Now, I'm not going to be able to check this out. I'm not fact checking. You know, this isn't CNN, but they suggest there's over 10,000 varieties of grapes and they cover the entire Alphabet. I looked at the list from a to Z, a, abu ulau, from Italy to Zilavka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a to z, all kinds of varieties. It reminds us that we're not all concord.
We ain't all going to be welches.
So the variety of our gifts, the variety of who and what we are, each of us connected one to another, is important.
And it's a good reminder for us as we continue to walk through this Easter season when there are some brand new tender branches who have become a part of the community.
And we need to continue to wrap them with love, care and compassion as they grow.
So we can be like Jacob Marley, chained to things and possessions.
Or would it make more sense to be chained and connected to one another?
