Sunday, 29 April, 2018 5th Sunday of Easter 1st
Reading: Acts 9:26-31 2nd Reading: 1 John 3:18-24 Gospel: John 15:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. If any of my branches doesn’t bear fruit, he breaks it off; and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit that it may bear even more fruit.
“You are already made clean by the word I have spoken to you; live in me as I live in you. The branch cannot bear fruit by itself but has to remain part of the vine; so neither can you if you don’t remain in me.
“I am the vine and you are the branches. As long as you remain in me and I in you, you bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not remain in me is thrown away as they do with branches and they wither. Then they are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.
“If you remain in me and my words in you, you may ask whatever you want and it will be given to you. My Father is glorified when you bear much fruit: it is then that you become my disciples.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
The election period is the only time that the people are really powerful as they are treated like kings by political candidates. The caricature that best expresses this situation is the picture of a carabao with its rider holding a stick from which green hay is dangled in front of said animal. Seeing the dangling fodder hanging before its eyes, the carabao moves forward to any direction that the stick is made to point by the rider. In the same manner, political candidates offer total submission to the electorate. They even play Herod’s game by promising voters half of their kingdom. It would not be surprising if an enterprising politician will use as battle cry that part of today’s Gospel that says, “If you remain in me…., you may ask whatever you want and it will be given to you.”
Jesus’ promise in today’s Gospel is not the empty promise of a politician. Unlike most politicians who love the people only during the election period, Jesus’ love for us is not seasonal. He loves us even when doing so is rendered unreasonable by our preferential option for sin. The fact alone that our hearts continue to pump life to our system even as we sin is already one great proof that God’s love for us is constant.
Unlike the platform of most political candidates that makes the people mere objects of dole outs, the vine-branch platform of Jesus engages us as agents of our own conversion. It ushers us into a close relationship with him, for apart from Him, we cannot be. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.coms
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