5th Sunday of Easter, B May 2, 2021
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
I tried. Last year, as the pandemic hit, I tried to start gardening, dabbling mostly… Tomatoes, bell peppers, a few vegetables… It did not go well. Most of what I started is dead now, overrun with weeds. The reason why is pretty straightforward: I didn’t take care of it. I started to be a gardener, but I did not remain a gardener, defaulting instead to a passive observer after the first few tomatoes and a single pumpkin.
Such fruitlessness isn’t a big deal for a fleeting hobby, but it is of infinite significance when we consider the garden of our souls. We are trying, during this Easter season, to cultivate joy. It’s been the theme of every Sunday homily since Easter Sunday. And, you may recall, that journey began with a reflection on the fact that joy is a fruit. It is the flowering of Christian perfection and it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. If we would know joy, we cannot simply choose it, we must cultivate it.
How do we cultivate this rare fruit, this joy that can coexist with and overcome immense suffering and even death itself? “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.” You could really summarize all of Catholic belief in this command from Jesus: “Remain in me.” He also uses an agricultural analogy to make this point. “I am the vine, you are the branches.” We all know that if you cut a branch off a tree or vine, it doesn’t bear any fruit, it simply dries up and dies. What do you do with dead branches? You burn them. The point should be clear to us. Remain in me or… die and then burn.
But this analogy doesn’t just give us a goal, it points us to the method, the way that we achieve this goal of fruitfully abiding in Jesus. “I am the vine.” What kind of vine do you think he means? Grape, of course. And do you know when Jesus offers this teaching? During the Last Supper. In that supper, he took wine, called it his blood, and gave it to his disciples. The connection would have been obvious to them and, now that I’ve pointed it out, it should be obvious to us. The Eucharist is at the heart of what it means to remain in Christ and bear fruit. Indeed, the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our faith.
Still, as I’ve said before, being the source and summit, beginning and the end, does not make it everything in between. This is why, week after week, millions upon millions of Catholics receive the Eucharist and seem mostly unaffected, unfruitful, unjoyful. As with any good garden, there’s a lot in between planting a seed and eating the fruit. Besides the Eucharist, how do we cultivate this abiding in Jesus?
St. John the Evangelist summarizes it quite simply in our second reading: “Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them.” And “his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.” If it feels like we’re going in circles… if it seems like all I ever preach about is the same few basic ideas… you’re right.
Listen to the word of God, study your faith, pray a lot, love God, love your neighbor, go to Mass, go to confession, receive communion… that sums up the heart of basically every homily I’ve ever given. But honestly, how many of us actually try it? Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. And life is messy. Love is messy. It is all too easy to become confused about what it means to love God or neighbor in this or that particular circumstance.
St. John kind of acknowledges that in this letter. “let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” In truth… real love acted upon, not just nice words or unreliable emotions. How do I know I “belong to the truth” as John puts it? For starters, we all have a conscience. That’s what he means when he talks about what “our hearts condemn.” It may be unclear and weak at times, but our conscience is the voice of God.
Conscience it not perfect. “God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.” This is why Jesus points us to the Ten Commandments and gives us other quite literal commands. Forgive in order to be forgiven, give to the poor, pray in secret, pick up your cross and follow me, do this in memory of me. It is why he created the Church and gave it the power to teach in his name, so that we would always have a way to apply his commands to an ever-changing world. Your conscience, your heart, is not infallible. It must be formed, taught, led to the truth. This is what Jesus means by being “pruned” by his words.
But do not be afraid! John tells us we have confidence if “our hearts do not condemn us.” If we truly follow our conscience and promptings of the spirit, then we “have confidence in God” even if it turns out we were wrong. And once we discover our conscience was wrong or a prompting misinterpreted, then we come to a deeper understanding of the truth and following our conscience means adapting to the deeper understanding, applying it more clearly to our lives. And even this process is not something we do alone.
If we seek joy, we must remain in Christ. If we want to remain in Christ, we must follow his commandments. We must rely on our conscience to guide us in that obedience. But we must also form our consciences, relying on the teaching of the Church whether that comes through reading scripture, hearing homilies, or utilizing books, websites, and all sorts of source that point us back to the Church and to Christ. So, we’re not alone in this. And even in that most private of places, in the internal struggles and changes of our hearts, we are not alone. After all, this is about remaining in Christ but also him remaining in us.
And “the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.” Our first reading depicts the Church “being built up.” That means people were being converted and following their consciences into the Catholic Church. Paul and the Apostles accomplished this by preaching the truth, yes, but only because they also had the “consolation of the Holy Spirit.” The Acts of the Apostles is riddled with miracles and manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Where are those miracles and manifestations now? They still happen. Why aren’t we seeing them?
In part, it’s because of circumstance. More dramatic things were necessary in the pagan culture of the ancient world. Also, they are more common where there is greater faith and more zealous evangelization. I firmly believe that, as our culture more and more resembles the pagan world of old, we’ll see more of the Holy Spirit doing now what he did then, at least for those who have the faith and zeal to work with him.
But don’t be discouraged. The Holy Spirit makes us speak in tongues, sing and dance and laugh with supernatural joy; he heals the sick and raises the dead and casts out demons. Seek out these things because Jesus commanded us to do these too. Have faith that God is still at work! But, know that the Holy Spirit also calls us to be silent and still, he strengthens our hearts and consciences to convict us of sins we overlooked, he compels us to admit we’re wrong, to apologize, and to humble ourselves. And the Spirit can manifest in the quiet, stubborn choice to keep practicing the faith despite the difficulties and scandals.
There are many fruits of the Holy Spirit, joy not least among them. “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” If you would accomplish this, remain in Jesus Christ. Treat him not as an idea, but as a person, a friend. Form your conscience, follow it. Invite the Holy Spirit into your hearts, recognize him in the great and the small. Tend that garden, and you will bear fruit.