THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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“At that time, Jesus said, ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.’”

A good Easter to all. 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus never speaks in parables, as in the Synoptic Gospels, but instead uses similes and imagery to convey his message. He says, for example, ‘I am the true shepherd,’ ‘I am the light of the world,’ and ‘I am the bread of life.’ Today we have heard him use the image of the vine: ‘I am the true vine.’ 

Today, the vine and the vineyards have meaning only in economic terms; they did not in Jesus’ time. Some large landowners had their vineyards, but each family, next to their own house, had a vine. Because the vine is a plant with a very long lifespan that can last for centuries, ‘…it knew my ancestors,’ it became like a member of the family, and an affectionate relationship was established because this vine had always given delicious bunches of grapes that had made this family happy. Then, the branches and the leaves provided excellent shade, and thus was born a proverb repeated many times in the Bible to indicate a time of serenity, friendship, peace, and joy when sitting under your vine and your fig tree. 

And it is in this context that Jesus uses the image of the vine. He presents himself as the true vine, and his claim is not calm and kind because he alludes to another vine that was believed to be the true vine. Which vine was he referring to? The vine, together with the fig tree, is one of the symbols of the people of Israel. How did Israel take the image of the vine? Because the vine brings forth delicious grapes, and from the grapes comes forth wine. Wine is the symbol of the joy of the feast. Israel was convinced of being a vine that offered the Lord what makes him happy, what pleases him, and that introduces him to a feast and joy. 

And let us add that the vine in the Bible is also the image of the wife who offers her husband the delight of her love. Psalm 128: “Your wife is like a fruitful vine in the privacy of your home.” Israel was called to be this vine, this faithful wife to the Lord, always ready to fill Him with joy, and offered the grapes it produced: sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, incense, prayers, songs, and music performed to perfection. The problem was that God was not interested in these fruits; to Him, they were more like garbage. Through the mouth of the prophet Hosea, God said, “I want works of love, not sacrifices.” The other prophets also denounced this vine as false. 

In the famous ‘Song of the Vineyard’ of Isaiah, this young prophet, about 20 years old, seeks to denounce this religious absurdity. He already did so at the beginning of his book. Still, he returns to it with a song he composed and probably performed, accompanied by a zither, singing to his friends in the alleys of the city of Jerusalem, as itinerant storytellers do. Then those who liked it listened to and sang this song, understanding its provocative message. It’s a lovely song preserved in the book of the prophet Isaiah; it’s a pity that the music has not been preserved. It is a song in which Isaiah tells the love story of his friend and his wife. He falls in love with his wife. The listener understands that his friend is God, who fell in love with a girl, symbolized by the vine. He showered the vine with care and attention, but then the vine produced inedible grapes – meaning his wife was unfaithful. 

This is Israel, the false vine that disappointed her husband, the Lord. Indeed, in Isaiah’s song, he says: The Lord expected righteousness and instead saw bloodshed; expected virtue and heard the cries of the oppressed people. These are the same accusations the Lord makes to Israel by the mouth of Jeremiah: ‘I had planted you like a fine vineyard, made entirely of genuine vines, but how did it become a bastard vine?’ 

When Jesus says, “I am the true vine,” everyone understands his allusion. Israel had defrauded their Lord. Now Jesus specifies who owns this vineyard. The Father is responsible; he is the vine grower, believes in this vine, and stakes everything on it. It is also a failure for him if it fails to produce fruit. Let us now listen to what the Father, the vine grower, does with this vineyard: 

He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. 

In today’s Gospel, we will hear Jesus repeat the expression ‘bear fruit’ seven times. If the vine does not produce grapes, it is good for nothing. In chapter 15, the prophet Ezekiel says it very well: “How is the wood of a vine different from the wood of any of the trees in the forest? Is wood ever taken from it to make anything worthwhile? Do they make pegs from it to hang things on? And after it is thrown onto the fire as fuel and the fire burns both ends, leaving the middle charred, is it then useful for anything? If it was not helpful for anything when it was whole, how much less can it be made into something useful when the fire has burned it, and it is charred?” 

What distinguishes false life from true life is the fruit. This holds for Israel and for the community of the disciples of Christ. The prophets we have heard, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, were not condemning the people of Israel; they were condemning certain religious practices that were displeasing to the Lord. Therefore, being a disciple of Christ only in words is impossible. Jesus says in the Gospel: “Not he who says, ‘Lord,’ ‘Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of God, but he who does the will of the Father.” And John, in his first letter, writes: “Children, let us not love with words or the tongue, but in deed and in truth, bearing fruit.” 

We wonder, then, what fruit the heavenly Father expects. Let us consider the Bible’s symbolic meaning of grapes and wine: joy and celebration. This is the only fruit the heavenly Father expects from this vine. This is the world the Father wants, where all his sons and daughters will be happy. He wants no other fruit but the joy of his sons and daughters. And what does the farmer do so that the vine produces this fruit, a whole new world where pain and lifelessness disappear? Jesus says he performs two actions; the first is, ‘if a branch does not bear fruit, he takes it away. If the branch bears fruit, he prunes it because he wants it to produce even more fruit.’ 

These are actions that farmers perform in two different seasons of the year. During the winter, the farmer approached the vineyard and removed the useless branches. In August, he carried out another action: he removed the weakest shoots to favor the best. The goal is to have an even greater number of grapes. Let us begin with the first action of the heavenly Father: remove the branch that bears no fruit. It is of no use. 

The most immediate interpretation could be that of a threat against the cutting off of the branches that are dead and unproductive, and, therefore, those Christians who are called Christians because they are on the list of baptized, but then they do not produce this fruit… then the heavenly Father cuts them off and throws them into the fire…

Let us abandon this misleading interpretation, which contradicts the heavenly Father’s affection for the weaker branches. Every person is animated by the sap, the Spirit of Christ, not only those who belong to the ecclesial institution. Every person is a branch, a shoot that bears fruit. The heavenly Father does not drive anyone away or cast anyone into the fire. 

So, what is Jesus saying? The discourse addresses Christians, who are inserted into Christ as branches in the vine through baptism. Jesus is saying that it is not enough to be merely nominally or outwardly inserted into this vine; it is necessary to let the sap of the Spirit of Christ act, which is what has led him to give all of himself for love, because this Spirit can be blocked, and if it does not reach the intimate self within each one, the branches produce nothing. Therefore, it is not a threat but a warning about the danger of not allowing the Spirit of Christ to take effect. 

This can happen to anyone, including Christians. In this case, Jesus says that the branch is dry; it does not produce joy in the world but pain. Any time the sap of Christ does not animate the branch, it is a time of life lost, time burned, of which no traces will be left. This is the warning Jesus gives in this call to be united to the vine, yet to block the Spirit of Christ. 

The second action of the heavenly Father, in which he shows us all his care so that the branches will produce the most, is presented through the image of pruning. There is pruning even where the branches are good and bear fruit, but there are cuts these shoots need. We could give many examples of life contexts in which the Spirit’s sap has been blocked. 

Let’s think of those moments when we lose ourselves in uselessness, in trivial, fleeting things; let’s think about how much time many young people and teenagers waste on social networks. We need to prune; let the heavenly Father prune us of these losses of life. Let us think about the moments when we allow ourselves to be guided by sloth, laziness, and a small desire to make ourselves available when someone needs help. Let’s consider the cuts required of those who live a double life, built on concessions. Let us also think of the cuts necessary for those who have a morbid attachment to goods, see nothing but money, and therefore forget those in need. These people also do many beautiful things, but they must be purified, and the Father makes these cuts. 

Now we ask ourselves: How does the heavenly Father do this pruning we all need? Jesus tells us how the heavenly Father prunes with His Word. “You are cleansed by the word I have preached to you,” Jesus says. This word is the word of the Gospel, “Sharper than any double-edged sword,” as the letter to the Hebrews says, “it penetrates even to dividing soul and Spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” There is no dark corner of our lives, no secret corner of the heart, that can escape this light of the word of the Gospel. 

This word illuminates all the contexts in your life where you block the sap of the Spirit of Christ by not letting this Spirit act, which leads you to love, to consume your life to make you happy, and to produce joy for your brothers and sisters. This word shows you all the dead branches that must be eliminated from your life, the useless leaves that take up space and block sunshine from the productive branches instead. 

It is clear that pruning always involves a painful aspect, and it is necessary to consider it because we are all sad to see certain behaviors we are fond of being cut. The book of Job says it well: ‘The hands of God hurt to heal.’ Let’s also think about so many of our religious manifestations, particular devotions that we practice because they calm us and perhaps give us the illusion of being in a good relationship with God, but we stop there; we don’t produce the fruits that the heavenly Father expects. The word of the Gospel illuminates this religious behavior very well and tells us to go one step further and produce works of love, which are the only ones that interest the heavenly Father. 

Jesus said during the Last Supper: “They are already clean through the word, which is preached to them, but not all.” There was one who outwardly belonged to the community of disciples but had not allowed himself to be pruned. Judas cultivated dreams of greatness within his religious traditions, which Jesus could not detach him from, and he handed over the Master to the spiritual authorities. He is an example of a person whose word of the Gospel has not been pruned. 

But the heavenly Father does not prune only with the word; he also guides us through the angels he places at our side. They are our brothers and sisters who see very well what is in us, the branches that need pruning because they bother us. We see very well in others. When the Spirit is not at work, selfishness and the evil one make them center on themselves; thus, they do not produce fruit. When they show us the branches that need pruning, these angels are the ones the heavenly Father uses to purify our lives. 

The heavenly Father also uses our lives to purify us from our idols. As our infirmities accumulate over the years and our strength declines, we often realize that those idols crumble. As idols, they were wonderful things, but when we put all our hope in them, we become their slaves and lose our sense of life. Instead, through what happens in our lives, we are invited to look beyond the finite to the meaning of our existence. 

There is another way in which the heavenly Father prunes this vine: criticism, sometimes harsh and biting, from many parts of the secular world directed at our Christian community. We cannot dismiss them too quickly by claiming they are merely crafty expressions of prejudice and therefore should not be considered. No, they can be very accurate; they can be a call to a little evangelical life; then the heavenly Father uses them to prune this vine and to make it produce much fruit. 

Now, Jesus clarifies the image of the vine and the branches with a verb that, according to John, appears 40 times in the Gospel. It is a crucial verb, repeated seven times in these few verses of our Gospel. We want to grasp the meaning of the verb “to remain.” Let’s listen: 

Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, 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 you can do nothing without me. 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, where they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 

“Remain in me as I remain in you.” What does the verb ‘remain’ mean? It appears at the beginning of the Gospel according to John, when the Baptist points out to Jesus that two of his disciples are the Lamb. They follow Jesus, and he turns to them and asks, “What do you want?” They answer, “Where do you stay – what is thy dwelling place?” They see where he is staying and stay with him that day. Jesus has no house in that place; “to dwell” means something different. They realize that Jesus is an extraordinary person, and they ask him where he dwells, meaning, what is your world? 

Let’s give some examples to help us understand the meaning of this dwelling place where Jesus dwells in Christ and in us. Let us take the example of those in love: when one is in love, one always carries the loved one within; one holds her in one’s heart; one remembers her continually with joy in any situation. If he is a student, at a particular moment he begins to stare; his head is with the beloved. If he’s working, the phone rings… maybe it’s the person I love calling me… That person dwells in him; everything reminds him of her because she lives inside him; she lives in him, and he always carries her with him. That’s what the little prince said: ‘If you see the color of the wheat, you will remember me because my hair is blond.’ For someone in love, anything reminds him of the loved one. 

Jesus says, “Remain in me as I remain in you.” Any event has to remind us of him if we are immersed in him, intimately united to him as branches to the vine. 

Another example is the Israelites’ complaints during the exodus; they complained constantly, lamenting the pots and pans they had dreamed of, even though they didn’t eat meat all the time in Egypt, quite the contrary. The rabbis said that it was easier for God to bring his people out of Egypt than to remove Egypt from the heart of his people. Egypt had remained with these people. Egypt still lived in the hearts of the Israelites; this thought was always with them. The same situation will be repeated for the Israelites in Babylon… The Lord will deliver these people out of Babylon, but Babylon will remain in their hearts. That is the ‘dwelling place’ we are talking about. 

We, too, have experienced moments when a friend who has truly marked our life remains within us, perhaps because the encounter with him helped us understand the true meaning of our life or took us out of danger. Or we have heard a widow sometimes exclaim, ‘So many years have gone by, but my husband always remains in me.’ It is not only memory or regret that remains, but the whole love story that has marked her life, and that time can never be erased. That is what ‘dwelling’ is all about; it is not about living in a material space but about a deep relationship, an intimate communication of thoughts, emotions, dreams, and choices… 

From these emotional experiences, remaining in Jesus, remaining in his life, means remaining in his world, in his way of thinking, loving, and acting. All this thinking, this search for Christ, becomes mine. In other words, Christ has implanted himself deeply in my heart so that I cannot do anything that does not align with him. 

This is what Paul says with enthusiasm; he repeats the refrain of ‘being in Christ’ 164 times in his letters, continually wrapped up in his person. In the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, he writes: “If one is inserted in Christ, in this life, he is a new creature; old things have passed away; new things have arisen.” In the letter to the Galatians, he writes: “It is not I who lives, it is Christ who lives in me.” They live in symbiosis; in tune, one dwells in the other. This is the ‘belonging’ that Jesus recommends to us, because if we do not dwell in him, our lives do not bear fruit. Again, in the letter to the Galatians: “Those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, they have put off the old man, have put off their deeds, and have put on the new man.”

Then we can ask ourselves: Where do I dwell? Where do I place the meaning of my life? Who and what do I hold in my heart that I continually remember and that determines all my choices? In this way, I can answer where I remain and who dwells in me. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches, who remain in me, and I in him produce much fruit.” 

Without the sap, the Spirit of Christ led him to love unconditionally, even his enemies. Without this Spirit, separated from it, our life is biological. 

And what are the fruits that this sap produces? Paul explains this clearly in the letter to the Galatians, chapter 5: The first fruit of the Spirit is love, agape. This term ‘agape’ denotes total love, the love of Christ, who has unconditional love and seeks above all the other’s joy; he does not think of himself. This is the ‘agape,’ unconditional love, even for those who have hurt me. 

Secondly, joy, peace, patience, knowing how to adapt to the needs of the brother and sister in every life situation, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… these are the fruits of this sap… which is the Spirit of Christ. Jesus says: ‘If anyone does not remain in me, he is a withered branch.’ It is a severe warning; it is not the people who are cast out, but all activities carried out detached from the Spirit of Christ and lacking consistency; they are garbage, and for that reason, they are burned. The image is used by the Baptist, who says: “He who comes after me has the pitchfork in his hand, reaps the good grain, but the chaff is swept away and thrown into the fire.” 

The part of our life that the Spirit does not move is the biological one, but there is nothing left, because the only part of our life that remains is the one moved by the Spirit, which produces unconditional love. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you shall ask what you will, and you shall have it.” His desires are rooted in the vine, and in him the sap of Christ circulates; his desires are those of the Spirit. Therefore, the desire will not be to dominate and be served, but to give joy to the brothers and sisters. These desires will be fulfilled because the Spirit will give you the strength to realize this love. 

“My Father will be glorified if you bear abundant fruit and are my disciples.” The fruit of the vine: the vine does not produce fruit for itself but for someone to enjoy. Therefore, the disciple of Christ does not love for the self-satisfaction of his moral perfection, nor to obtain a reward in paradise. No, he produces fruit because he is glad to see someone happy; he is delighted to see that the love of God has manifested itself through him. He rejoices because he sees someone being born and contributes to a world filled with joy, the only fruit the Father in heaven expects. 

I wish you all a Happy Easter and a good week.