15 October
“We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God; for, beholding his greatness, we realize our own littleness; his purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon his humility we find how very far we are from being humble.” – St Teresa of Jesus
Gospel Reading : John 15:1-8
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you.
As the 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. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
What do the Fathers say?
TERESA of Jesus. “The soul must remember that it cannot do anything of itself unless it is united with Christ… He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear the fruit of good works, provided we do not cut ourselves off from Him by our own fault.”The soul must remember that it cannot do anything of itself unless it is united with Christ… He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear the fruit of good works, provided we do not cut ourselves off from Him by our own fault.”
Mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends… But for this friendship to be real, the soul must remember that it is Christ who sustains it, as the vine sustains the branches, for apart from Him we can do nothing.
St AUGUSTINE. For we cultivate God, and God cultivates us. But our culture of God does not make Him better: our culture is that of adoration, not of ploughing: His culture of us makes us better. His culture consists in extirpating all the seeds of wickedness from our hearts, in opening our heart to the plough, as it were, of His word, in sowing in us the seeds of His commandments, in waiting for the fruits of piety.
Abide in Me, and I in you: not they in Him, as He in them; for both are for the profit not of Him, but them. The branches do not confer any advantage upon the vine, but receive their support from it: the vine supplies nourishment to the branches, takes none from them: so that the abiding in Christ, and the having Christ abiding in them, are both for the profit of the disciples, not of Christ. For he who thinks that he bears fruit of himself, is not in the vine; he who is not in the vine, is not in Christ; he who is not in Christ, is not a Christian.
St HILARY. The useless and deceitful branches He cuts down for burning.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. And even as the best of men require the work of the vinedresser, He adds, And every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. He alludes here to the tribulations and trials which were coming upon them, the effect of which would be to purge, and so to strengthen them. By pruning the branches we make the tree shoot out the more.
St AUGUSTINE. And who is there in this world so clean, that he cannot be more and more changed? Here, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. (1 John 1:8) He cleanses then the clean, i. e. the fruitful, that the cleaner they are, the more fruitful they may be. Thus He calls Himself immediately the cleanser of the branches: Now ye are clean through the word, which I have spoken unto you. He performs the part of the husbandman then, as well as of the vine.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. You are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you, i.e. you have been enlightened by My doctrine, and been delivered from Jewish error.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
Saint Teresa of Jesus’ Interior Castle and
The Book of Her Life
Artwork ex Wikimedia Commons