“You Are The Branches”

By Marcy Stenstrom

     As the days are gradually getting warmer, me and my little girls are enjoying digging in the dirt in the flower beds and vegetable gardens around our house. I have an obsession for peonies and already dug up and transplanted over three dozen plants. I let the girls help me plant corn and spinach but we’ve only just begun. Having a successful garden means a lot of work throughout the life of the plant and growing season. It’s more than just planting a seed. This is not unlike the greatest of God’s creations; you.

     In today’s Gospel, John 15:1-8, Jesus makes a symbolic comparison of us, the Church, to a fruit-bearing plant. God is the grower or creator. Just as my peonies or vegetables would not be very good if I didn’t maintain them by watering them, fertilizing them, weeding them, and protecting them from pests and diseases, so too does God take care of us. He gave us Jesus and the Ten Commandments to “feed” us and protect us from “pests” and “diseases”. He created us and gave us life but our salvation, a chance for eternal life with Him, is through Jesus. Jesus said He is the true vine. In gardening, every plant has a main stem, a vine, a stalk, a main source that is the strong and firm support for the branches and fruit. Through our faith in Jesus, we are His “branches”. All goodness that we do is through Him, because of Him. Without the vine, the branches die. Without Christ, we are nothing.

    The fruit that the branch bears, that we bear, is the goodness that we create, do, and give to others. This parable reveals that we cannot create this goodness ourselves. It comes from Jesus and God the Father. If we are true to the vine and free from disease, bearing good fruit, we can “ask for whatever we want and it will be done.” Of course this is easier said that done. There are so many pests and diseases in our lives that it is not easy to fend them off. That’s the great thing about our faith. We just have to keep trying and God the grower loves us so much that He continues to take care of us, feeding us with the Eucharist and protecting us with Reconciliation.

     If only I could get my garden to cooperate and bear great fruit, maybe I wouldn’t have so many blisters and headaches.