Fifth Sunday of Easter

Cycle B.

Homily April 28, 2024.

Acts 9:26-31/1 John 3: 18-24/ John 15:1-8

“Remain in me, as I remain in you”

What is communication? We communicate many things in our daily lives, such as thoughts, feelings, and problems. On the other hand, we can transmit valuable information as love, or we can transmit hate or disunity. The dictionary defines communication as the actionable transfer of information from one person, group, or place to another by writing, speaking, or using a medium that provides a means of understanding. However, communication involves connection, it means that when we are communicating, we connect with our receptor. Our receptors could be our family, friends, or neighbors, we are connected most of the time.

But ironically, we are also more disconnected from one another than at any other time in history. Social media brought us fast communication, but our social networks like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok make the connection more difficult. Apparently, we are connecting with the entire world, but it is not a true personal connection, because we forget of our vital connection. Our daily life is like a virtual life, our communication does not abide, because it depends on one cellphone or one computer. We are online with thousands of social contacts, but offline with Jesus, the true Vine and we cannot bear fruit.

Today in the Gospel, Jesus introduced himself as the true Vine, he said: “I am the true Vine, my father is the vine grower. […] you are the branches.” Jesus wants to help us understand the importance of the connection with him. A branch cut off from its vine dies, it cannot live on its own; much less can it produce fruit on its own. Perhaps, constantly we ask ourselves why it is happening. Because occasionally we feel dry, all of us have areas of our existence infertile. We should ask the lord that cut our dry areas, and let us open to new impulses in our existence.  

Therefore, we shall ask ourselves about our connection with God, Jesus invites: “Remain in me, as I remain in you.” The clue of the message for this Sunday is in the connection with the resurrected. Because “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine.” Remaining with Jesus is our proposal as Christians, only in this way we will be able to find the best purpose for living. But it must be active, it means that we should remain actively and reciprocally with the Lord. We need to be renewed; if we remain with Jesus and vice versa, we can constantly bear fruits in this world. We can show Jesus and leave sense to the others, but it is possible if we remain with him.

Hence, we need a good connection with God and with others because we are living in the same world together. Our lives are always woven with other lives, then all the branches below to the same vine, which means we should be connected. Perhaps we are people who usually come to the mass, pray the rosary or some prayer, so that we have the beginning of the connection; however, our connection is efficient when it does not stop. Moreover, the connection is renewed by God through us because the Lord tells us today: “Without me, you can do nothing.”

The second reading suggests the same teaching from Jesus, it is important because we are talking about the same tradition. In other words, in the community where the apostle John had preached, they took this teaching about abiding. we have a summary in the second reading about the experience of faith in John’s community. Surely the community had problems and difficulties because they were a human community, but they every day chose to follow the Lord. They had a commandment from God: “We should believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, […] Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them […].”

Brothers and sisters let us join with the Lord like the apostle Paul as we listened to in the first reading. The community did not believe in him, about his conversion, but they accomplished a good connection as a community. All in all, it is the community that moves forward to transform the world bringing Jesus to every person. Let us establish the best connection between God and the people, “we [they] may proclaim to a people yet to be born the justice God has shown.”