43 — JESUS TRUE VINE

Presence of God. — Make me understand, O Lord, the intimate relationships existing between You, Redeemer, and us, Your redeemed.

Meditation

1 — Jesus is the one “Mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2, 5); yet He was not content to redeem us while remaining separated from us, His redeemed, but willed that all our redemption should be wrought in Him, through a most close union between Him and us. This is the great mystery of our incorporation into Christ, revealed by Him Himself to the Apostles on the evening before His Passion. “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser... Abide in me and I will abide in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me” (Jn. 15, 1-4).

Jesus strongly affirms that there is no redemption, there is no supernatural life, life of grace, except for one who lives in Him, grafted in Him; just as in the branch there is no life and no fruit except insofar as it is joined to the trunk. Behold the very close connection that Jesus willed to establish between Him and us, a connection indispensable for our salvation, for our sanctification. Not even the smallest degree of grace can come to us without Christ’s mediation, just as the smallest drop of sap cannot reach the branch if this is detached from the tree.

Moreover Jesus declares that, by remaining in Him, not only do we have supernatural life, but we become object of special care on the part of the heavenly Father, who is “the vinedresser” of the mystical vine. In fact the heavenly Father knows us as His adopted children and as such loves us and cares for us only insofar as He sees us in Christ, His only beloved Son. The grace of adoption embraces only those whom the Father finds strictly joined to His Only-Begotten, so as to be “living part” of Him, as the branch is living part of the vine.

2 — “Abide in me.” One cannot abide unless one already is. Jesus tells us to “abide” in Him precisely because our grafting into Him is a fact already accomplished, merited for all men by His death on the cross, and actualized individually for each of us at the moment of Baptism. Christ, at the price of His Blood, united us to Himself; therefore we “are” in Him, but it is for us to “remain” in Him in the fullest and most vital way.

If to be grafted into Christ Baptism is sufficient, and if one degree of grace is enough to remain in Him as living branches, we must not be content with this. We must be conscious of the immense gift received and seek that our grafting into Christ become ever deeper; we must “live” this union with Christ, the center, the sun of our interior life. Not by chance did Jesus say: “Abide in me”; thus He wished to indicate that our life in Him requires our personal collaboration: we must apply all our strength, our mind, our will, our heart to willing to live in Him and by Him. The more we apply ourselves to abiding in Christ, the more deeply we sink our little branch in Him, and He will communicate to us ever more abundantly the sap of grace. “Abide in me and I will abide in you”; to the degree that, through faith, charity, and good works, we hold ourselves tightly united to Christ, He will abide in us, continually communicating new life of grace to us. Then we shall be not only living branches, but rich in fruits, fruits of holiness destined to gladden God’s heart, because Jesus said: “My Father will be glorified if you bear abundant fruit” (Jn. 15, 8).

Colloquy

“O high and eternal Trinity, Deity, Love, we are trees of death and You are tree of life. Infinite God, what a spectacle it is to see in Your light the pure tree of Your creature! Supreme Purity, You gave branches to this tree, that is, the soul’s faculties: memory, intellect, and will... Memory should retain You, intellect know You, will love You... But this tree, because it departed from innocence, by disobedience fell, and from tree of Life became tree of death, whence it produced fruits only of death.

“Wherefore You, high and eternal Trinity, as if drunk with love and mad for Your creature, seeing that this tree could bear no fruit but of death, because it was separated from You who are life, gave it the remedy with that same love with which You had created it, grafting Your Deity into the dead tree of our humanity. O sweet and gentle graft!... Who constrained You to this, to restore life to it, though that creature had done You such injury? Love alone; and because of this graft death is dissolved.

“And was it enough for Your charity to have made this union with it? No, and therefore You, eternal Word, watered this tree with Your Blood. This Blood, by its warmth, makes it sprout, if man by free will grafts himself into You, unites and binds to You his heart and his affection, binding and bandaging this graft with the band of charity, and following Your doctrine. So that through You, Life, we produce fruits of life, if we wish to be grafted into You. When we are grafted in You, then the branches You gave to our tree bear their fruits” (St. Catherine of Siena).

O Jesus, how much it comforts me to think that my desire for union with You is not a vain chimera, but is already a reality: yes, because You willed to graft me into You as the branch on the stock, to the point that I live only for this union with You. Oh, grant that my soul may keep itself ever more closely united to You and open itself ever more to receive the vital sap of grace that You produce in me, Your branch!