Sunday 5 Easter
(B-2006): Roots
John 15
“I am the vine, you are the branches.”
The image is simple and powerful.
People often ask me how they can deepen their
spiritual lives, as if it were a question of some magical method of prayer, or a particular book.
But the answer is much simpler: be rooted in Christ,
remain rooted in him.
Then comes the question: how do I get rooted in
Christ? What must I do, how must I think to be rooted in Christ?
It’s as if we had never heard of baptism.
By it we have been grafted onto the vine, inserted
into it.
We seem to forget, or else our modern mindset
prevents us from grasping, that baptism thrusts the deepest roots of our personal existence into Jesus Christ.
It also thrusts his deepest roots into us.
Baptism establishes a communion of life, a oneness
of being, more radical and more total than the most intimate sharing of husband and wife.
This can only be grasped in faith. We cannot “feel”
baptism like we might feel an intimate embrace. But because we don’t feel it, does not mean it does not exist.
Feelings are of course part of the joy and drama
of our humanity. But feelings are not everything. They come and go like the wind. Indeed, they can become idolatrous, if we
conclude something to exist or to be good only when we feel it to be so.
But the deepest truths of human life elude our
feelings: respect, loyalty, integrity, etc.. This is true above all of those truths which belong to the supernatural realm:
faith, hope and charity, the sacraments, the creed, etc..
It is therefore true of our baptism.
We believe that in baptism we are literally inserted
into Jesus Christ by water and the Holy Spirit; by that same Spirit, Christ is inserted into us.
We are co-rooted in each other and therefore among
ourselves.
We are like Siamese twins with Christ: two in
one.
With all the baptized in Christ we make one big
Siamese community.
So the question, “how can I be rooted in
Christ the Vine?” has no meaning for someone who is baptized. If you are
baptized, you are already rooted in him.
The rest of your life is therefore a process of
becoming more and more aware of that profound, radical communion with him.
It is a process of ensuring that you remain active
in intensifying that union with him, lest you dry up and, so to speak, “fall off” the vine or are cut away by
God the Father.
This process is fascinating and inspiring:
it is laborious and demanding;
yet it gives life and energy, a sense of final
purpose and destiny;
it absorbs the core of one’s very being
in an unquenchable thirst for Christ;
it becomes the passionate desire which engulfs
all other passions and desires;
it becomes a holy obsession which, paradoxically,
sets everything in us free with the freedom of Jesus himself.
Is this not what St. Paul
experienced when he said, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in
the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20)?
Paul no longer thinks of himself just as “little
old Paul”, but as “Paul-in-Christ” or “Christ-in-Paul.”
In my mother’s time, it was common in Ireland to include the name Mary in every child’s name.
Each of us should in a very real way think of
ourselves as being called “Peter-in-Christ” or “Frances-in-Christ”, etc..
If we are rooted in Christ, our destiny is to
be possessed by Christ.
Think no longer of yourself as a solitary and
private “I.” Always include Christ in your head and heart, so that wherever you may be, however you may feel,
whatever you are doing or going through, you are consciously and actively involving him in the very fabric of your self-consciousness.
This does not turn us into some kind of “Jesus-freaks.”
Anyone who tries to live in such deep communion
with Christ will not lose anything of their true selves. On the contrary, their true self will emerge all the more forcefully
and expansively for two simple reasons.
One is that Jesus, who created us, is hardly likely
to want anything other than to perfect who we are: Jesus is not on an ego trip when he seeks to be one with us.
Second, he will help prune away all the false
things which we have allowed to clutter up our being through sin. It is we who leak our authenticity, not Christ.
As we grow in our inner communion with him, he
actually brings to realization our full potential as human beings, even in terms of our activities in the world.
He frees our minds from deception and falsity
and so he makes our intellects function more fully and more accurately.
He frees our freedom from false choices, and so
empowers us to make better decisions.
Our very unconscious life can be liberated from
its shadows and redeemed to our conscious life so that we can be free of hang-ups and neuroses.
All of this is possible, is waiting to happen,
as the result of the gift of our baptism!
What, then, is our contribution to be?
St. John tells us that to remain in Christ means to keep his commandments.
This is the bread and butter of communion with Christ.
We must be obedient to Christ, listen to and do
what he says.
We cannot be rooted in Christ and ignore his truth,
taught to us by his apostles and their successors.
We cannot willfully disobey and say we want to
be more and more rooted in Christ.
If we love Christ, we will be glad to obey him,
cost whatever it may.
St. John also hints that, in obeying, it is actually the Father who
prunes us, cuts away what is in us that would impede more abundant fruit produced by the sap of the vine, which is the Spirit
of God.
Our obedience is a “joint effort”
of ourselves and the Trinity.
Obedience goes hand in hand with prayer.
Prayer, from our side, is a conscious act of turning
to Jesus and resting in quiet communion with him.
It is like sitting silently and lovingly with
someone we love, not rushing to talk, but being present to one another.
Prayer is to be vulnerable to Christ, if necessary
to let him touch the painful parts of our heart, that we may weep and be cleansed and know the deep consolation of his strong
and gentle majesty.
Then there is the sacramental life; above all,
confession (“holy reconciliation”) and holy communion: the one prunes away what cannot live with Christ, the other
strengthens that which can.
Finally, there is charity: works of mercy, of
penance and of justice, all of which put into action the deep communion of life between the branches and the vine.
Do not, then, be afraid to let Christ lead you
to the natural and final consequences of your baptism.
He will set you on fire with himself and that
fire will bring light and heat to a dark and cold world.
Live not for yourself only: indeed, “live
no longer as yourself, but let Christ live in and with you” so that, through you, Christ can root the world ever more
deeply into the Vine of his eternal Kingdom.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, May, 14th,
2006
Annunciation, DC: 1.00 pm
