Tag: Remain in Me

Alleluia: Remain …

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Charity, Discipleship, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
June 22, 2022

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062222.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with the beautiful word “Remain“. Jesus’s use of the word indicates that we are already in God, in the heart of Jesus. All we have to do is to remain there by our choice to live in grace.

Alleluia, alleluia.
Remain in me, as I remain in you, says the Lord;
whoever remains in me will bear much fruit.

The Alleluia Verse also blesses us with the assurance that Jesus chooses to remain in us! Wow! What an astounding gift! Just hold it in your heart for a while in prayerful gratitude.

Our verse, with its profound confidences, leads to a no-nonsense Gospel in which Jesus makes discipleship clear:

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,
nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down
and thrown into the fire.
So by their fruits you will know them

Matthew 7: 18-20

We pray to REMAIN
and to bear good fruit

A Quote and a Scientific Explanation:

Quote from John Bunyan. This quote reminds us that in order for the soul to bear fruit, it must experience some cold and dark times as well

It is said that in some countries
trees will grow,
but will bear no fruit
because there is no winter there.

Scientific Explanation from Carnegie Museum of Natural History:

Many of our fruit and nut trees require a cold period to produce fruit. Without cold this winter, we won’t have fruit this fall. If our fruit trees don’t get enough cold, then the flower buds may not open in the spring. If the flower buds don’t open, they can’t get pollinated

Music: I Am the Vine – John Michael Talbot

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Books, Conversion, Discipleship, Eastertide, Faith, spirituality1 Comment

May 18, 2022

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Acts reveals the tensions in the Church between Jewish and Gentile believers. For the Jews, the ritual of circumcision was a key expression of covenantal faith. Some felt it was necessary for Gentile converts to undergo the ritual in order to become Christians.

Which way is the right way?

Like all start-ups, the Church had many friction points which required decisions about what was essential and what was only customary. Those customs being thousands of years old, the decisions become even harder. Readings later this week describe more conflict points.

Nevertheless, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and despite the venerability of custom, the nascent Church was able embrace a new reality rooted in Christ’s inclusive love.

These kinds of philosophical and theological tugs-of-war have accompanied the Church down through history. Some of them have helped reveal deeper insights into our faith. But, as in all human communities, some of the tugs have been motivated by fear, greed, power, and other selfish interests.

Watching how the early Church handles their particular situation may give us hints about how we should handle them today.

In our Gospel, Jesus makes clear what is essential and inviolable to the faith:

I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing.

John 15:1-2
John15_4 Remain

I think “Remain” is a beautiful word. In the dictionary, it will be defined as ‘stay’. But it connotes much more to me.  Re–main asks us not just to choose to stay with Jesus, but to choose it over and over – like reenlist, renew, recommit.

Remain means to endure with the Beloved Vine through every season – winter’s cold and summer’s heat, and all that’s in between.

Remain means “Love Me, stay beside me, even when others fall away.”

May we remain.

Poetry: The Vine – Malcolm Guite

John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

How might it feel to be part of the vine?
Not just to see the vineyard from afar
Or even pluck the clusters, press the wine,
But to be grafted in, to feel the stir
Of inward sap that rises from our root,
Himself deep planted in the ground of Love,
To feel a leaf unfold a tender shoot,
As tendrils curled unfurl, as branches give
A little to the swelling of the grape,
In gradual perfection, round and full,
To bear within oneself the joy and hope
Of God’s good vintage, till it’s ripe and whole.
What might it mean to bide and to abide
In such rich love as makes the poor heart glad?

Music: I Am the Vine – John Michael Talbot