QUINTO DOMINGO DE PASCUA 2024

En el evangelio de este domingo, Jesús invita a sus discípulos a permanecer en él así como el permanece en el Padre. Usa el símbolo de la vid y los sarmientos diciendo “Yo soy la verdadera vid, y mi Padre es el labrador. A todo sarmiento que no da fruto en mí lo arranca, y a todo el que da fruto lo poda, para que dé más fruto.” Al igual que los discípulos somos también nosotros somos invitados a permanecer en él. Voy a presentarles algunas ideas de cómo podemos permanecer en Cristo.

Guardando sus palabras: esto significa leer y meditar en su palabra. Recordemos que la Biblia es la palabra de Dios entre nosotros. Cuando la leemos tenemos la oportunidad de conectarnos con Dios, de escuchar su voz y conocer su voluntad.

Orando: la oración nos conecta con Dios y nos ayuda a conocer su voluntad, nos hace fuertes y nos ayuda a crecer espiritualmente.

Amándonos los unos a los otros: el mandamiento nuevo que Jesús nos dejó fue el amarnos los unos a los otros como él nos amó. Este amor significa servir y hacer el bien a los demás, tratándolos de la misma manera como él nos ha tratado a nosotros. Participando en misa: esta es una buena manera de permanecer en Jesús. En la misa tenemos la oportunidad de escuchar la voz de Jesús y ser alimentados con su cuerpo y su sangre. Por lo tanto debe existir una conexión estrecha entre la vida y la eucaristía. No pueden estar separadas la una de la otra.

Participamos en misa porque queremos que Dios nos haga mejores personas. Este proceso de cambio es llamado conversión, y significa, que nosotros le permitimos a Jesús que transforme nuestras vidas. No podemos asistir a misa todos los domingos y continuar siendo las mismas personas siempre; Si eso sucede, significa que no estamos abriendo nuestros corazones al Señor, que no estamos siendo humildes y no le estamos permitiendo hacer su trabajo.

Vivir los sacramentos. Los sacramentos son regalos que nos da Dios para nuestra salvación y en la medida en que los recibimos y vivimos en ellos nos acercamos a la santidad. Hoy te invito para que seas consciente de los sacramentos que has recibido y vivas de acuerdo con la gracia que se te ha concedido y si por alguna razón no has recibido algún sacramento necesario para tu vida espiritual te invito para que busques la manera de recibirlo y así llevar una vida conforme a lo que nos propone nuestra iglesia católica.

Hoy yo los invito a estar con Jesús, a reconocer que sin él no somos nada, a permitirle que camine con nosotros, que haga su trabajo y transforme nuestras vidas acorde a su voluntad para que podamos producir mucho fruto.

-P. Luis

Fifth Sunday of Easter 2024

In this Sunday's gospel, Jesus invites his disciples to remain in him just as he remains in the Father. He uses the symbol of the vine and branches saying “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. He plucks out every branch that bears no fruit in me, and prunes every branch that bears fruit, so that it may bear more fruit. Just as the disciples are, we are also invited to remain in him. I am going to present to you some ideas of how we can remain in Christ.

Keeping His Words: This means reading and meditating on His word. Let us remember that the Bible is the word of God among us. When we read it we have the opportunity to connect with God, to hear his voice and know his will.

Praying: prayer connects us with God and helps us know his will, makes us strong and helps us grow spiritually.

Loving one another: the new commandment that Jesus left us was to love one another as he loved us. This love means serving and doing good to others, treating them the same way he has treated us. Participating in mass: this is a good way to remain in Jesus. At mass we have the opportunity to hear the voice of Jesus and be fed with his body and blood. Therefore there must be a close connection between life and the Eucharist. They cannot be separated from each other.

We participate in Mass because we want God to make us better people. This process of change is called conversion, and it means that we allow Jesus to transform our lives. We cannot attend Mass every Sunday and continue to be the same people always. If that happens, it means that we are not opening our hearts to the Lord, that we are not being humble, and that we are not allowing Him to do His work.

Live the sacraments. The sacraments are gifts that God gives us for our salvation and to the extent that we receive them and live in them we approach holiness. Today I invite you to be aware of the sacraments that you have received and live in accordance with the grace that has been granted to you and if for any reason you have not received any sacrament necessary for your spiritual life, I invite you to find a way to receive it and thus lead a life in accordance with what our Catholic Church proposes to us.

Today I invite you to be with Jesus, to recognize that without him we are nothing, to allow him to walk with us, to do his work and transform our lives according to his will so that we can produce much fruit.

-Fr. Luis

Abide in Me…

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 neighbor, 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, especially in the sacrament of marriage, 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. [synthesized from Pope Francis Regina Caeli, 29 IV 2018]

-Fr. Rajesh

5th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B

My friends, we have some beautiful imagery in our gospel today:   …The Vineyard of the Lord.  

We have:

• The vine

• The vine branches

• The vine grower (or dresser)

• And, of course, the fruit of the vine….

Jesus used the imagery of the vine and the branches because almost everyone was familiar with the growing of grapes…

·        Israel – was called “The Vineyard of the Lord.”

·        The vine was part and parcel of Jewish imagery.  There was a huge golden vine mounted on the front of the Temple – signifying that the Temple was the source of life.

·        The vine – rooted in rich soil – is the source of life – containing the life-giving sap which nourishes the branches – and ultimately –  the fruit of the vine.

Now, Jesus tells his disciples that he is the vine.  Scripture Scholars point out that the word, "Alethinos" was used.  Alethinos is the Greek word for "true, real, genuine…" 

Jesus is the true vine – not the Temple – not anything (or anyone) else…

"I am the true vine – and my Father is the vine dresser. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does – he prunes so that it bears more fruit."

Many years ago, I planted some grape vines against the fence in my back yard.  I thought it would be fun.  I planted 3 vines – and as they grew – I tied them to the fence with some string.  In just a couple of years, the vines grew rapidly – and it wasn’t long before the vines spread across the entire fence – around 75 feet or so.  I was very proud.  Except – the grapes were tiny – about the size of peas.

That next Winter, my parents came to visit and I was showing my grape vines to father my.  He said, “It looks like they need some attention.  Would you like me to prune them?” 

As he was asking the question, I remembered that when my dad was a young man – he worked in a vineyard as a vine dresser in Western New York !  That’s where they grow those wonderful Concord grapes – mostly for Welch’s   I said, “Yes, please.  That would be great.”  He said, “I’ll do it tomorrow while you’re at work.”

…When I got home from work and looked at my grape vines – my heart sunk !  There was almost nothing left.  90% of my vines were cut away – laying on the ground.  There were only 4 short branches left on each vine.

My dad must have seen the disappointment on my face.  He said, “The problem with your vines was that the branches were way too long and unruly.  The sap had to travel so far  to reach the end of the branches – the fruit of the vine gets almost no nourishment.”        I said, “OK…”

WELL – guess what happened next Spring??  I had so many grapes – I couldn’t believe it !  The bunches of grapes were HUGE – as big as footballs…  And, the grapes – were almost – the diameter of a quarter !

As the grapes began to ripen, I called my dad and thanked him for pruning away those useless branches. 

…"I am the vine – and my Father is the vine dresser. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit and every one that does – he prunes so that it bears even more fruit."

My friends – that experience with my father really brought home today’s gospel message that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. 

When we are apart from Jesus – we are diminished.

But when we're close to him – he gives us life.  And, we stay close to Jesus by:

• Cutting, trimming, removing the things in our lifestyle which move us away from a close relationship with God.

• Praying to him.

• Reading the gospels; listening to his message and following his example.

• Loving and caring for others.  By doing so, we also produce fruit for the Kingdom of God.

Always be mindful that Christ Jesus gives us life – his life.

Life in abundance….