Jesus the Real Vine. (John 15:1-17)
I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener.
A vine is a climbing plant which bears grapes.
The vine here represents, Jesus' Mystical Body, Glorified Body or the New Jerusalem, the Temple and dwelling place, where God is worshipped, praised and loved.
In the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Throne of God. The vineyard is the Kingdom of God or heaven.
God is the gardener, who loves and cares for the vine. God continues to nourish, the Mystical Body of Christ, with His Spirit. The Spirit of God is like the sap in the vine plant. If there are blockage along the path of flow of the sap, the unnourished parts dies off, so too mankind, without the Holy Spirit, will die a spiritual death. Spiritual death is eternal death, in this world and after their earthly journeys.
He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit.
God loves all of His Children, redeemed and saved by Christ. But if mankind were the culprit, which caused themselves to be unworthy of salvation, then they would be like branches that the gardener shall break off from the vine plant, so that it will be healthy and strong. In the Kingdom of God, there shall be no adversary forces.
All Children redeemed and saved by Christ are not supposed to remain, until death if possible to be mere recipients of nourishment. All of us are supposed to be like a lamp, that allowed God to pour His Holy Spirit into. With the lamp filled with oil, God is going to light it, and the light is supposed to lit up the dark and cold world. This light needed to be kept on a lamp-stand, not hidden under our bed. Bed here symbolizes a place of idleness.
God will break off every branch in Jesus that does not bear fruit. Even though we were once part of this vine, yet God as the gardener, had every right to break off any branches that does not serve its purpose. All of us in the Mystical Body of Christ, is like a cell in a physical body. Every cell, in the body, needs to be functional and serve its purpose, instead of being an obstacle for the flow of the bodily fluid.
After God waited patiently for us to grow, mature and bear fruit, yet we had not even bored a single fruit, the 'Gardener', would had to remove that unproductive branch.
This parable reminds us not to be complacent and relent, after baptism, deceiving ourselves that a place in heaven awaits for us, because of the outward signs of baptism. Be reminded that God is looking for fruit, from all of us, although He is very patient.
The Gardener, will prunes every branch that does bear fruit.
In the Lord's prayer, we asked God, not to bring us to the test, yet testing, in the forms of different trials are essential, as God said that 'every branch', that bears fruit, would be prune, further.
Pruning is indeed painful for the branches, as well as the vine. When we go through trials, Jesus suffered with us, in a mysterious manners. His Sacred Heart, still breaks in agony. Our sinful natures and sins, still pierced through His Sacred Heart.
Trials can come in different ways, mentally and psychologically, trials of the heart and its desires, the mouth and its manifestation of the disposition of the heart. Trials of the physical expression, which desire us to deny ourselves and carry our own crosses. We are supposed to be responsible for our wrong doing. Confession and reconciliation, needed to be completed with penance of sacrifices. This might includes, the areas in our lives, that are most susceptible and vulnerable. The areas, that always lead us to commit sin. God wants us to recognize these areas and seek, His help in sincere prayers and fasting, for He will answered them. Fasting, self-denial and sacrifices, which come with prayers are very powerful weapons to counterattack the forces of darkness and their works, in our lives, lives of others and the world.
When the fruitful branches are pruned, they became clean and bear even more fruits. Therefore, as gold is tested with fire, so our souls are tested with the fire of God's love, that comes with different trials, that really pricked through the depth of our hearts.
Endurance and perseverance are essential. God promised us the Gift of fortitude, which through His mercy and love, helps us to mysteriously endure with courage, the painful ordeals of trials.
You have been made clean already by the teaching I have given you.
Jesus stayed with His Disciples, of which among the twelve, accept Judas Iscariot, would be His future Apostles and representatives on earth, to bring the message of eternal life to people of all races and countries.
The presence of Jesus Divinity, was like a sun, that shone its light through the human flesh of Jesus, would lit up the darkness and coldness of their hearts. The words and presence of Christ among them, would purified their hearts and cleansed them from their sins.
The words of God, which are seeds of the Holy Spirit, sown initially by Christ Jesus, then through all His Apostles, if allowed room in human hearts, are like plots of land, for seeds of the Holy Spirit to grow and they will bear plenty of fruits. The Holy Spirit, purifies and sanctifies the hearts of Man, making them like that of Christ's Sacred Heart.
Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you.
A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains in the vine.
These are very strong Words, spoken by Jesus Christ in this parable, 'A branch cannot bear fruit by itself'. We cannot serve God with merely our human spirits, hearts and minds. All those elements in human beings were made flawed by the presence of sins and our natural inclination to it. God wanted the purity of our hearts to love, serve and worship Him. God wanted to unite our pure human natures and wills, with His Holy Spirit, together, with the purified, perfected, human spirit, heart and mind of the glorified human Jesus. Through these unions of our submission to Him, we shall bear plenty of fruits of God's choice.
Jesus never rejects anyone who wants to come to Him. Even the will and desire to come to Him, by themselves are through the love and mercy of God. That is the working of the Holy Spirit, who is full of love and compassion, looked with pity and mercy on those hopeless souls, that wonder in the shadow of darkness.
In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, and you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.
It was through Jesus' love, for mankind that God looked with pity on all who were gathered by Him, as His brothers and sisters. God looked not on our sinfulness, but He looked at His Son, Jesus Christ. Filled with tears in His eyes, cried out to the Father to accept us, as God's very own Children.
If not for Jesus who loves us so much, all of us would perish, in God's anger. We deserved to be cast into the fire of hell, for our sins and sinful inclinations, but because of Jesus, we were saved. For indeed, we can 'do nothing without Him'.
Whoever does not remain in me is thrown out like a branch and dries up; such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burned.
All death and idle Christians, even though all opportunities were given to them, yet they were complacent to be blinded, by the Devil, would vanished, in the anger of God, into the eternal fire of hell, even while in this world. These people would live, as spiritually death, although physically alive in this world. They were like living death, who roams the earth seeking damnation for themselves. Like a rotten seed, that would later drops to the ground.
These people would be destined to go to hell, with the Devil, who had fed them with their evil venom. This poison became their food in this world, so would it continue, after their lives ended, only to be merged fully with the Devil, in the fire of hell.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it.
The Words of Jesus is the seed of the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit, sprouting as new life in us, later matured and bored fruits, is liken to a telephone line that stays connected.
The Holy Spirit, that comes to us, flows from and through the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the whole world. He is especially active in the hearts of human beings who willingly opened up to Him. When He flows into our hearts, our 'telephone lines' are connected with God. We can ask anything, through Jesus' name and God will grant them to us. It is the same as saying, the Lord's prayer through the heart, mind and soul of Jesus Christ. God would grant everything that Jesus prayed for, of which the answer would be channeled to us.
Whatever Jesus asked is to fulfill God's will, not His own Will. Yet His own will is always God's Will. We were made for God and to inherit the Kingdom of God. We are all moving forward to the Kingdom of God, to receive all that Christ labored for. He died, so that He can shared God's Kingdom, which was, is and will always be solely His, with all His brothers and sisters. No one in the Kingdom of God is left idle, without task to perform, so this start as early as we are capable of exercising our conscience, to the day we died and continued powerfully and fully after we had been perfected to fit into the Kingdom of God. All of us are to be molded and formed into saints and nothing less, then this purity and holiness, would a person deserved a place in the 'house' and 'mansion' of God.
My Father's glory is shown by your bearing much fruit; and in this way you become my disciples.
I love you just as the Father loves me; remain in my love.
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
To be Jesus' disciple, is to deny ourselves, in self-sacrifices, fasting, detaching ourselves from the material richness of this world, to love God's gifts, but not to worship them and to carry our own crosses, as penance for our sins and inclinations to it.
The Light of God shines into our lives, warm the 'house' and the 'occupant', then like a transparent glass of a lamp, this precious Light would be reflected and shines out. This includes, God's transformation of our lives, which others may see as model Christians. As reflectors of God's Light, we were made channels or openings, whereby God's goodness, love and mercy are experienced by others.
True disciples of Jesus are supposed to love God with all their hearts, souls and minds and to love others as they loved themselves. It is essential to be able to love ourselves. We would not be able to sincerely love others, without ourselves appreciating and treasuring, God's Gift of Life to each one of us.
Treasuring God's gifts to us must not exceed, its limitations that God allowed. If our desires and expressions, for the gifts of God had outshone that for God Himself, who is the source and origin of the gifts, we indeed had fallen.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
God's Wisdom, had brings about creation of all that is good. He sees our thought, ideas, plans, visions, dream, hope, fear and every loops and knots, He had traveled through and through.
He would not leave His missions uncompleted. What He planned, He would see that it achieve divine and superb result, although how the Devil builds obstructions in God's path.
All that God wanted for all of His creatures, that He put on the earth, was a sharing in His Life, which includes all the challenges that were, being put forth, by the Devil, to leads us astray. After overcoming all the challenges of being a human being, God took us back, to Himself to share in the treasures of heaven, which was reserved for His Son, because of His perfection and obedient. And only because of His generosity and love, He decided to share what belongs to Him, with His brothers and sisters, whom God, through Jesus Christ are going to mold and transform to be like Jesus Himself. Only if we were like Jesus, who fully opened up His heart to God, so be able to receive God's fullness of blessings, power and authority, therefore by the Power of His Blood and the Mystery of His death, He wanted to shaped us into who He really was and therefore reign with God.
My commandment is this; love one another, just as I love you.
The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them.
What more precious and superb, can the Son of Man gives to all His brothers and sisters on earth, then His own Life, which includes the whole of His heart, soul and mind.
When Jesus gave His whole Life to us on the cross, what have we to offer Him in return? He thirsted and only cheap vinegar was given to Him, is that what earthly creatures showered Him?
Why are we crucifying Him, over and over again, in a mysterious ways. He is still hurt and tears still fall from His Glorified Human eyes, but could we see all these reality, that He experienced and is still experiencing, until the Final Battle was over?
Are we complacent to deceive ourselves that once the victory had been achieved, every battle was over? Not yet! It is ever ragging hot, in the hearts of so many countless sinners, Christ Jesus continues to cried out to the Father, "Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing!" In the hearts of Christians, Christ mourned, because they had put in themselves so much obstacles, that they refused God's Spirit, from taking the throne of their hearts and lives. How can God enter, if we locked up the front doors of our houses? He would not peep or tries to steal His way into our lives. He knock gently on the front door, seeking for water of the earth, just like what He asked from the Samaritan Woman, so too He is asking each of us for this merely tainted, polluted water of the earth. For He had every ability to transform this water into living water to quench the thirst of our souls.
Jesus knocked and seeks for water of the earth, means that God, through Jesus Christ asked us to surrender what God considered inferior, tainted and polluted lives, which include our sinful hearts, minds and the hopeless souls to Him, for He is going to transformed them into Jesus Himself.
And you are my friends if you do what I command you.
I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing.
Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father.
Jesus was the servant of God. From Him comes the virtue of true servanthood. The world did not understand what servant meant, but Christ Jesus had come as servant for the people whom He wanted to save. Jesus Himself is the Son of God, yet He came and finally performed the rituals of washing the disciples' feet, which He fulfilled when He laid down His Life for them, so to save them. As the Servant of the Lord, God revealed His Mysteries and plans to Him fully. God dwelled, inside His Son, through mutual consent. God never forced on Jesus' human nature to be servant of God's people, but He freely chose to accept that virtuous task.
We, who are followers of Jesus Christ are supposed to imitate His footpath, to be servants of His people on earth. Servants were matured Christians, whom God chooses for Jesus, to be His representatives on earth, to manifest His presence and power.
Servants are Shepherds, in place of Jesus for His lambs and sheep, on earth.
You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures.
We had nothing to boast about, if we bored fruits, because without God, the 'Gardener', who cares and loves, the Vine and its branches, we would be futile and useless, of which hell is the place destined for us. Therefore all praise and glory belongs to Him alone, who is the 'Gardener' and owner of the vineyard. He is the one who shall be proud, when he saw the fruits of His labor, in unity with the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. This, then is what I command you: love one another.
It was love that created us. It was love that God endures and persevered, in order that when the time was ripe, He revealed His greatest love, in Jesus Christ.. It was love, therefore that saved us. It was love, that transformed and will continue to transforms us, into who Jesus Christ was and is. Heaven is the place, when we were transformed and clothed with Glorified Bodies, filled with immersed measure of love, derived from its source that is the Mystical Body of Christ. It would be still considered a state, only when we were still enclosed in our human flesh, governed by its physical senses, that applied to the human law.
Once our human enclosure gave way, to a transcended 'wedding gowns', all that were humanly considered as state of being, would be a reality, because we now experience fully, the divine state of our being emerged from us, therefore our judgements and senses would be supreme.
We would not only experience ourselves floating in clouds, groundless, but experience the reality of walking, just like what we experience on earth.
Although love is, an alien in this sinful world,
Although how warm love is, yet the world embraced coldness,
Although how bright love is, yet the world loves the darkness,
Although how overflowing God's love is, yet only few really experience it.
Yet although how tough, hard, constricted, the vessel, which connects heaven and earth, we must never stop loving, because we are the light and salt of the earth.
Praise the Lord. Amen.
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