POPE FRANCIS ON THE 5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER B
Regina Caeli, 2 May 2021
Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!
In the Gospel of this Fifth Sunday of Easter (Jn 15:1-8), the Lord presents himself as the true vine, and speaks of us as the branches that cannot live without being united to Him. And so He says: “I am the vine, you are the branches” (v. 5). There is no vine without branches, and vice versa. The branches are not self-sufficient, but depend totally on the vine, which is the source of their existence.
Jesus insists on the verb “to abide”. He repeats it seven times in today’s Gospel reading. Before leaving this world and going to the Father, Jesus wants to reassure His disciples that they can continue to be united with Him. He says, “Abide in me, and I in you” (v. 4). This abiding is not a question of abiding passively, of “slumbering” in the Lord, letting oneself be lulled by life: no, no! It is not this. The abiding in Him, the abiding in Jesus that He proposes to us is abiding actively, and also reciprocally. Why? Because the branches without the vine can do nothing, they need sap to grow and to bear fruit; but the vine, too, needs the branches, since fruit does not grow on the tree trunk. It is a reciprocal need, it is a question of a reciprocal abiding so as to bear fruit. We abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us.
First of all, we need Him. The Lord wants to say to us that before the observance of His commandments, before the beatitudes, before works of mercy, it is necessary to be united to Him, to remain in him. We cannot be good Christians if we do not remain in Jesus. With Him, instead, we can do everything (cf. Phil 4:13). With Him we can do everything.
But even Jesus needs us, like the vine with the branches. Perhaps to say this seems audacious to us, and so we ask ourselves: in what sense does Jesus need us? He needs our witness. Like the branches the fruit we must give is the witness to our lives as Christians. After Jesus ascended to the Father, the task of the disciples – it is our task – is to continue to proclaim the Gospel in words and in deeds. And the disciples – we, Jesus’ disciples – do so by bearing witness to His love: the fruit to be borne is love. Attached to Christ, we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and in this way we can do good to our neighbour, we can do good to society, to the Church. The tree is known by its fruit. A truly Christian life bears witness to Christ.
And how can we succeed in doing this? Jesus says to us: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (v.7). This too is bold: the certainty that what we ask for will be given to us. The fruitfulness of our life depends on prayer. We can ask to think like Him, to act like Him, to see the world and things with the eyes of Jesus. And in this way, to love our brothers and sisters, starting from the poorest and those who suffer most, like He did, and to love them with His heart and to bring to the world fruits of goodness, fruits of charity, fruits of peace.
Let us entrust ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. She always remained completely united to Jesus and bore much fruit. May she help us abide in Christ, in his love, in his word, to bear witness to the Risen Lord in the world.
After the Regina Caeli, the Holy Father continued:
Dear brothers and sisters,
Last Friday in Caracas, Venezuela, José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, lay faithful, was beatified. He was a doctor filled with science and faith: he was able to recognise the face of Christ in the sick and, like the Good Samaritan, he helped them with evangelical charity. May his example help us to care for those who suffer in body and spirit. A round of applause for the new Blessed …
I send my best wishes to our brothers and sisters of the Orthodox Churches and of the Eastern and Latin Catholic Churches who today, according to the Julian calendar, celebrate the solemnity of Easter. May the Risen Lord fill them with light and peace and comfort the communities that live in particularly difficult situations. Happy Easter to them!
We have entered the month of May, in which popular piety expresses devotion to the Virgin Mary in many ways. This year it will be marked by a prayer marathon involving important Marian shrines, to implore the end of the pandemic. Yesterday evening was the first stop, in Saint Peter’s Basilica. In this context, there is an initiative that is very close to my heart: that of the Burmese Church, which invites us to pray for peace with a Hail Mary for Myanmar in our daily Rosary. Each of us turns to our Mother when we are in need or in difficulty; this month, we ask our Mother of Heaven to speak to the hearts of all leaders in Myanmar so that they may find the courage to walk the path of encounter, reconciliation and peace.
With sadness I express my sympathy to the people of Israel for the accident which took place last Friday on Mount Meron, killing 45 people and injuring many. I assure you of my remembrance in prayer for the victims of this tragedy and for their families.
My thoughts today also go to the Meter Association, which I encourage to continue in its efforts to assist children who are victims of violence and exploitation.
And finally, I give a heartfelt greeting to all of you present here, dear Romans and pilgrims from various countries. In particular, I greet the members of the political Movement for unity founded by Chiara Lubich 25 years ago: best wishes and good work in the service of good politics.
And I wish you all a good Sunday. Please do not forget to pray for me. Enjoy your lunch and goodbye!
© Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2021/documents/papa-francesco_regina-caeli_20210502.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
REGINA CÆLI
Saint Peter’s Square
5th Sunday of Easter B,
29 April 2018
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
The Word of God, even on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, continues to indicate to us the way and the conditions to be a community of the Risen Lord. Last Sunday the relationship between the believer and Jesus the Good Shepherd was highlighted. Today the Gospel offers us the moment in which Jesus introduces himself as the true vine and invites us to abide in him so as to bear much fruit (cf. Jn 15:1-8). The vine is a plant whose branches form the whole; and the branches are only fruitful insofar as they are joined with the vine. This relationship is the secret of Christian life and John the Evangelist expresses this with the word ‘abide’, which is repeated seven times in today’s passage. “Abide in me”, says the Lord; abide in the Lord.
It means abiding in the Lord in order to find the courage to step outside of ourselves, from our comfort zone, from our limited and protected spaces, in order to cast ourselves into the open sea of the needs of others and to give a wide range to our Christian witness in the world. This courage to step outside ourselves and to advance the needs of others is born from faith in the Risen Lord and from the certainty that his Spirit accompanies our history. One of the ripest fruits that springs from communion with Christ is, in fact, the commitment to charity for our neighbour, loving brothers and sisters with self-sacrifice, to the point of the final consequences, as Jesus loved us. The dynamism of believers’ charity is not the result of strategies; it is not born of external stresses, of social or ideological concerns, but rather, it is born from the encounter with Jesus and from abiding in Jesus. For us he is the vine whose sap — that is, ‘life’ — we absorb, in order to convey into society a different way of living and self-spending which places the least in first place.
When we are intimate with the Lord, as the vine and branches are intimate and joined, we are able to bear the fruits of new life, of mercy, of justice and peace, derived from the Lord’s Resurrection. It is what the Saints did, those who lived Christian life in fullness and lived the witness of charity, because they were true branches of the vine of the Lord. But “to be holy does not require being a bishop, a priest or a religious…. We are all called to be holy by living our lives with love and by bearing witness in everything we do, wherever we find ourselves” (Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, 14). We are all called to be holy; we must be holy with this richness we have received from the Risen Lord. Every activity — work and rest, family and social life, exercising political, cultural and economic responsibilities — every activity, whether small or great, if lived in union with Jesus and with the attitude of love and of service, is an occasion to live Baptism and Gospel holiness to the fullest.
May Mary, Queen of Saints and example of perfect communion with her Divine Son, help us. May she teach us to abide in Jesus, as branches in the vine, and to never distance ourselves from his love. Indeed, we can achieve nothing without him, because our life is the living Christ, present in the Church and in the world.
SOURCE: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2018/documents/papa-francesco_regina-coeli_20180429.html
EMPHASIS MINE
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
Fifth Sunday of Easter B,
3 May 2015
Something Jesus often repeats, especially during the Last Supper, is: “Abide in me”. Do not tire of me, abide in me. And Christian life is precisely this: to abide in Jesus. This is Christian life: to abide in Jesus. And Jesus, in order to explain to us what he means by this, uses this beautiful figure of the vine: “I am the true vine, you the branches” (cf. Jn 15:1). And every branch that is not joined to the vine ends up dying, it bears no fruit; and then is thrown away to feed the fire. Many are used for this, to feed the fire — they are very, very useful — but not in bearing fruit. Rather, the branches that are united to the vine receive the lifeblood and thus develop, grow and bear fruit. It’s a simple, simple image. To abide in Jesus means to be united to Him in order to receive life from Him, love from Him; the Holy Spirit from Him. It’s true, we are all sinners, but if we abide in Jesus, like the branches to the vine, the Lord comes. He prunes us a little, so that we can bear more fruit. He always takes care of us. But if we detach from Him, if we do not abide in the Lord, we are Christians in name only, but not in life; we are Christians, but dead ones, because we bear no fruit, like branches broken away from the vine.
To abide in Jesus means to be willing to receive life from Him, as well as pardon, even pruning, but to receive it from Him. To abide in Jesus means to seek Jesus, to pray, prayer. To abide in Jesus means to approach the sacraments: the Eucharist, Reconciliation. To abide in Jesus — and this is the most difficult thing — means to do what Jesus did, to have the same attitude as Jesus. But when we “slur” someone else [speaking badly of others], for example, or when we gossip, we do not abide in Jesus. Jesus never did this. When we are liars, we do not abide in Jesus. He never did this. When we cheat others with the dirty deals that are available to everyone, we are dead branches, we do not abide in Jesus. To abide in Jesus is to do the things that he did: to do good, to help others, to pray to the Father, to care for the sick, to help the poor, to have the joy of the Holy Spirit.
A beautiful question for us Christians is this: do I abide in Jesus or am I far from Jesus? Am I united to the vine that gives me life or am I a dead branch, that is incapable of bearing fruit, giving witness? And there are other branches too, of which Jesus does not speak here, but he speaks about them elsewhere: those who make themselves look like disciples of Jesus, but they do the opposite of Jesus’ disciple: these are hypocritical branches. Perhaps they go to Mass every Sunday, perhaps their face looks like a holy card, all pious, but then they live like pagans. And Jesus calls them hypocrites in the Gospel. Jesus is good, he invites us to abide in Him. He gives us the strength, and if we slide into sin — we are all sinners — He forgives us, because He is merciful. But what He wants are these two things: that we abide in Him and that we are not hypocrites. And with this a Christian life moves forward.
And what does the Lord give us if we abide in Him? We just heard it: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (Jn 15:7). The power of prayer: “Ask whatever you will”, that is, prayer is so powerful that Jesus does whatever we ask of him. However if our prayer is weak — if it is not done sincerely in Jesus — prayer does not bear its fruit, because the branch is not united to the vine. But if the branch is united to the vine, that is, “if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you”. And this is the almighty prayer. Where does the omnipotence of this prayer come from? From abiding in Jesus; from being united to Jesus, like the branch to the vine. May the Lord grant us this grace.
© Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150503_santa-maria-regina-pacis-ostia.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
REGINA CÆLI
Saint Peter’s Square
Fifth Sunday of Easter, 3 May 2015
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
Today’s Gospel shows us Jesus during the Last Supper, in the moment He knows His death is close at hand. His ‘hour’ has come. For it is the last time He is with His disciples, and now He wants to impress firmly a fundamental truth in their minds: even when He will no longer be physically present in the midst of them, they will still be able to remain united to Him in a new way, and thus bear much fruit. Everyone can be united to Jesus in a new way. If, on the contrary, one should lose this unity with Him, this union with Him, would become sterile, or rather, harmful to the community. And to express this reality, this new way of being united to Him, Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches: Just “as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:4-5). With this image He teaches us how to abide Him, to be united to Him, even though He is not physically present.
Jesus is the vine, and through Him — like the sap in the tree — the very love of God, the Holy Spirit is passed to the branches. Look: we are the branches, and through this parable, Jesus wants us to understand the importance of remaining united to him. The branches are not self-sufficient, but depend totally on the vine, in which the source of their life is found. So it is with us Christians. Grafted by Baptism in Christ, we have freely received the gift of new life from Him; and thanks to the Church we are able to remain in vital communion with Christ. We must remain faithful to Baptism, and grow in intimacy with the Lord through prayer, listening and docility to His Word — read the Gospel —, participation in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation.
When one is intimately united to Jesus, he enjoys the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are — as St Paul tells us — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22). These are the gifts that we receive if we remain united in Jesus; and therefore a person who is so united in Him does so much good for neighbour and society, is a Christian person. In fact, one is recognized as a true Christian by this attitude, as a tree is recognized by its fruit. The fruits of this profound union with Christ are wonderful: our whole person is transformed by the grace of the Spirit: soul, understanding, will, affections, and even body, because we are united body and soul. We receive a new way of being, the life of Christ becomes our own: we are able to think like Him, to act like Him, to see the world and the things in it with the eyes of Jesus. And so we are able to love our brothers, beginning with the poorest and those who suffer the most, as He did and love them with His heart, and so bear fruits of goodness, of charity, and of peace in the world.
Each one of us is a branch of the one vine; and all of us together are called to bear the fruits of this common membership in Christ and in the Church. Let us entrust ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, so that we might be able to be living branches in the Church and witness to our faith in a consistent manner — consistency of one’s own life and thought, of life and faith — knowing that all of us, according to our particular vocations, participate in the one saving mission of Christ.
SOURCE: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2015/documents/papa-francesco_regina-coeli_20150503.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
SEE AS WELL:
5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER YEAR B HOMILY REFLECTION HERE AND HERE.
5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER YEAR B MASS PRAYERS AND READINGS HERE.
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