Fifth Sunday Of Easter, Year B-- Vine And Branches-- See You Later, Suckers!

Today, we hear about pruning and abiding to bear fruit.

Regarding pruning, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” is an expression used in the hope of making money selling something worthless to a gullible customer.

Similarly, in gardening, sucker shoots are false branches or stems that suck the energy from the plant and if they are not spotted and pruned, they will drain energy from the fruit trying to grow, except for tomato plants where master gardeners say that leaving a couple suckers is good because they too will develop and produce good fruit.

E.g. having an occasional treat like ice cream or an adult beverage, etc. is OK, but if you keep adding indulgent things to your life, your physical and spiritual life will be drained; crowded out– “Too comfortable in Zion,” as Amos 6:1 says.

I need to be open to pruning, “to examining the unhelpful habits of the heart “I’ve absorbed and asking God to free me of those that bear bitter fruit, or those that shade out and choke a potential harvest.”1

We hear John 15:2 today that the Father “takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit…” Fruit means spiritual fruit, like holiness, virtues, and good works.

Prayer requires an under-scheduled life with pruned activities, commitments and friends. … a strenuous attempt at detachment from our distracting world of dollars, demands, the telephone, email. It’s important especially for women, trained to be “nice,” … doing your fair share.”2

Regarding pruning in our day-to-day life, an example is Jack Welsh at GE. Under his leadership, GE grew from $14 billion in market value to over $ 410 billion. He pruned in four ways: If a GE business could not be number one or number two in its market, it would be cut. Any business that was struggling would be fixed, closed or sold. Every year, GE would fire the bottom 10 percent of the work force. Welch would get rid of layers of bureaucracy in the company that slowed down communication, productivity, and ideas.3

Regarding, abiding in Jesus in marriage, author and psychologist Henry Cloud said, “I have also taught this method [of Jack Welsh] to couples, and they see immediate changes. One couple reported back that they changed their weekly “date night” as a result. [A wife said: of her and her husband] “We used to take the time to have a date night every week, get a babysitter to spend time together apart from the kids. But, we would go out and end up talking about the kids, running the house, and all the things that we were trying to get away from. We lost the benefit of date night and were coming back not feeling very refreshed or renewed with each other and our relationship. “So, we asked ourselves about [what could be pruned], things that we talked about that got us into conflicts… “Then we decided to make those off-limits. We started having real dates again, like when we were first dating, before kids and the challenges of running a household took most of our attention. We remembered what it was like when we first met and every minute gave more life to our relationship. And we did the things we used to do. Now we are looking forward to that night….it kind of grounds us now through the week. I know that no matter what is going on, that night is going to give me energy” [which we can then devote to our family and children, refreshed].4

John 15:4 says unless we remain on the vine who is Jesus, we can do nothing.

One finding from Archbishop Buechlein's Report on teaching the Catholic faith noted that “There is a trend that gives insufficient emphasis on God's' initiative in the world with a corresponding overemphasis on human action. [Some Catechism text books] do not adequately emphasize that human action is intended to follow upon God's action and initiative in the world. When the methodological starting point is predominately human experience, the texts leave the impression that our human initiative is the prerequisite for divine action. God's initiative at times appears subordinate to human experience and human action.

The Catechism teaches us that “grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives…”

E.g. My Cursillo friend Peter Roth has a business card that says, “Peter Roth, branch” to mean that, in baptism, we were given a new name: Branch. Connected deeply, mysteriously, to Christ, the true Vine, by grace.

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection is not a saint in the formal sense, but his spiritual insight of trying to always live in the presence of God is regarded with special love by the Carmelite Family.

E.g. At a recent diocesan-wide Legion of Mary event, a lady told me that she joined the lay Carmelite order. I asked her if they required meditation on Scripture called lectio divina and she said, “Yes, I am doing lectio divina and people are coming up to me like they are drawn to me because I am doing this abiding prayer with Scripture.”