Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 2, 2021
Fr. Oscar Coelho

The Gospel for today, presents a beautiful imagery of Jesus being the vine and we as the branches. Jesus, in this Gospel, motivates us (the branches) to remain in him, to be connected to Him (the Vine) so that we (the branches) may bear much fruit. The point that Jesus makes is simple, yet powerful: We as branches have to be connected to Jesus, the Body of Christ, in order to bear much fruit, we have to assimilate ourselves to Jesus; we have to be like him, in all aspects of our life.
Here the imagery presented are the vines of the grape plant, from which the branches produce abundance of grapes. It can, however, apply to any other plant or tree. For example, the vine of a watermelon plant, its branches will grow watermelons; an apple tree, its branches will produce apples; an orange tree, its branches will produce oranges, etc. In other words, we cannot graft branches of watermelon to a grapevine and produce grapes; similarly, we cannot graft the branches of orange tree to an apple and produce oranges, can we? It simply won’t work, right? It will cause damage to the whole tree, and even where an apple tree would bear apples, grafting branches of orange tree, will produce apples that are disfigured and inedible.  I know you might be laughing, but I actually saw this in Veracruz, Mexico with guava trees. (see image below) Birds come and drop the seeds of different plants within the branches of guava tree, and then these seeds, because of heavy monsoon, take roots and become parasitic plants on the branches of the guava tree, eventually affecting the fruit, that grows in a diseased manner; one that is not worthy to be eaten. 

Something similar can happen to us, my dear brothers and sisters. If we the vines, we as Catholics, we as the Body of Christ, we the branches, connect ourselves to Jesus with sins, and ideas and values that are completely opposite to Jesus, our Vine; the teachings of our Mother Church, the Body of Christ, can we bear good fruits? Can we bear good fruit in abundance?
Perhaps, then, this Sunday’s Gospel is a challenge for you and me, to reflect and figure out what are those sinful behaviors, those ideas and values that are contrary to Jesus, to the teachings of our Mother Church, that we need to prune off ourselves, that we need to cut/ uproot out of our lives, so that we, the branches, can firmly assimilate ourselves in Jesus, our vine, our life, so that we can produce good fruit in abundance.
 

Homilía en Español