Abbots of Cluny Monday 11 May 2015

Saints Odo,  Maiolus, Odillo, Hugh, and Blessed Peter the Venerable, Abbots of Cluny. May 11 2015

COMMENT:
At the Mass introduction, we heard of of the Enthusiasms of G. K. Chesterton and the movements of monastic lives from the Desert Hermits and Communities on to the generations of monastic orders as like the Benedictine Cluny saints, on to the mendicant friars and later to clerical, missionary, lay institutes.
The Cluniacs vied with the foundation of the Cistercians.
Today we too experience of the enthusiasm, and pray for  vocations in our own community. 
COLLECT:
O God, by whose grace thy servants the Holy Abbots of
Cluny, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became
burning and shining lights in thy Church: Grant that we
also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline,
and may ever walk before thee as children of light;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Cluny Abbey: The Most Significant Monastery of the Medieval Worl 
   Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Deqd47DWb0  

France's magnificent Cluny Abbey was founded in 910 AD on a hunting preserve owned by the Duke of Aquitaine. At its height, Cluny Abbey was the greatest monastic order in the Western world; four of the order's abbots became popes, including Urban II.

Dom Donald's Blog: Benedictine Cluny anniversry: (On Tuesday May 11th. we celebrated the Community Mass in Memory of the Holy Abbots of Cluny . The Blog posting includes additions regar...

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Benedictine Cluny anniversry

(On Tuesday May 11th. we celebrated the Community Mass in Memory of the Holy Abbots of Cluny. The Blog posting includes additions regarding Cluny)

Today is the Feast of the Holy Abbots of Cluny.

On the day of our Memorial of the Holy Abbots of CLUNY, the Internet offers up-to-date information and history.

The following LINK is very impressive and we appreciate the article and illustrations.

Holy Abbots of Cluny Website Posted by John Whitehead : http://onceiwasacleverboy.blogspot.com/2010/05/holy-abbots-of-cluny.html

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

The Holy Abbots of Cluny

Today is the Feast of the Holy Abbots of Cluny.

My own interest in Cluny arises in part from the fact that there was from 1090 until 1539 a Cluniac priory in my home town of Pontefract, and it was my interest in such local facts that began to expand my historical imagination. As the years have gone by I see that in not a few ways I am drawn to the Cluniac vision of worship and prayer alongside the world, and the pursuit of the beauty of holiness in all its forms. It is a topic upon which I have given a few lectures over the years, and one to which I hope to return.

This year is the 1100th anniversary of the foundation of the abbey in 910, and is being marked by a series of events in and around the remains of the abbey. The French mint has even produced a 10 Euro coin to commemorate the anniversary. The Pope has spoken in one of his weekly catecheses about the contribution of Cluny to the life of the whole Church - a point he has referred to in other addresses in recent years.

Cluny gave to the Church a model of a renewed Benedictine monastic life, that helped generate other, complementary, congregations, an ordered tradition of worship, the promotion of the arts in the service of religion, the encouragement of pilgrimage, the promotion of devotion to Our Lady, support for the emerging Papal monarchy and a centralised administrative structure. It attracted the patronage and support of contemporary rulers such as Alfonso VI of Castile and Henry I of England. In one sense it was arguably the first, and one of the most successful, of multi-nationals. Its legacy stretches far beyond the cloister.

A key factor in the development of Cluny was the independence from secular authority granted by its founder, Duke William of Aquitaine. By his foundation charter he placed it under the immediate authority of the Holy See. The text of that charter can be read here. The abbey grew in size and influence as a result, and so did the direct influence of the Papacy. This was a form of practical utramontanism, implemented with local outlets wherever Cluny acquired or founded dependencies.

To see an excellent account of the history of Cluny's first, and probably most important English foundation look at Lewes Priory, and Friends of Reading Abbey gives something about a foundation inspired by Cluny, although not regarded as part of the Cluniac Order as such.

I suspect that too many historians these days tend to concentrate, due to the nature of the surviving evidence, on Cluniac administration and economics at the expense of understanding what it was that drove forward the Cluniac system, and that was the religious impulse.

That also underlay the famous exchange of letters and pamphlets with St Bernard of Clairvaux about the expression of monastic life. Often seen as a clash between two entirely different models I think it should rather be seen as an internal debate within what was still, in many ways, a single, undifferentiated Benedictine tradition, and not untypical of clerical discussion or debate. What heightended it was the calibre of Bernard and Peter the Venerable, and the scale of their two monastic projects. Bernard may have had the more cutting comments, but it was Cluny that influenced the wider Church beyond the walls of monastic communities.

Pope Urban II wrote of Cluny that it
"shines as another sun over the earth, so that it is more fitting to apply to it the words of Our Lord 'You are the Light of the World' "

and St Hugh spoke of how
"Ever since we founded this monastery, prepared and helped by the divine clemency, we have very clearly experienced in this place the presence of the compassion of Almighty God and the gaze of His fatherly devotedness."

The dedication of the High Altar of Cluny III by Pope Urban II in 1095 in the presence of St Hugh and the community - from an early thirteenth century MS. 

The Holy Abbots of Cluny are a group comprised of four saints - the great founding and establishing abbots - Odo, Maiolus, Odilo and Hugh, who successively ruled it from 910 until 1109, the centuries of growth and its zenith - and Bl Peter the Venerable who restored its fortunes after the disastrous career of Abbot Pons in the early twelfth century and whose abbacy marked the end of the era of Cluniac dominance. After Peter's time - 1122-56 - the abbey and its enormous family passed, relatively, into not so much decline, as being left behind by the newer developments in the life of the Church.

I have taken from Vultus Christi's post for this day last year the specific antiphon for the four sainted abbots for Lauds, the Little Hours and Vespers:

Odo arose full of the Holy Spirit,
and renewed the beauty of the monastic Order
throughout the world, alleluia.

Maiolus, overflowing with charity and with grace,
and emulating the holiness of the angels,
was lifted high above men in virtue, alleluia.

Odilo showed wondrously what was the charity of his heart,
who, while pitying sufferings of the faithful departed,
yearly decreased them by a sweet refreshment, alleluia.

When blessed Hugh was about to expire
on the day of the sacred rites of the great Sabbath [Holy Saturday],
he greeted the new light of the Paschal Candle,
earnestly praying with sighs that he might happily reach the promised land, alleluia.

 

Christ in Majesty from St Hugh's chapel at his retreat at Berze - an example of Cluniac painting, and of a central theme in Cluniac spirituality and art. 

Insert jump break

Lubac's Paradoxes of Faith

 

Easter: May 10th

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Jesus Christ Adonai

As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. "I have told you this so that my joy may be in... More

Includes prayers, readings, family activities and recipes for the day.

 http://www.catholicculture.org/

Lubac's Paradoxes of Faith

Beyond Our Ken: Henri de Lubac's Paradoxes of Faith

By Thomas Van (bio - articles - email) | May 04, 2015

From the truest truth to the falsest falsehood, there is often only one step. It has often been noted, quite rightly. But from the noting of that fact to the condemning of certain truths, as being dangerously near falsehood, there is also one step, and that step as well is often taken, this time very wrongly.

The fear of falling a prey to error must never prevent us from getting to the full truth. To overstep the limit, to go beyond, would be to err through excessive daring; but there are also errors of timidity which consist precisely in stopping short, never daring to go any farther than half-truths.

Love of truth never goes without daring. And that is one of the reasons why truth is not loved.

In three brief paragraphs, Henri de Lubac, SJ diagnoses a universal problem of intellectual life, relevant not least to people of faith. De Lubac (1896-1991) had a gift for seeing the fundamental dynamic of such problems and expressing it clearly without getting bogged down in particulars.

The above comes from Paradoxes of Faith, a collection of de Lubac’s aphorisms on spiritual life, apostolate and thought. Published in English translation by Ignatius in 1987, it combines two earlier books by de Lubac, Paradoxes (1945) and Further Paradoxes (1955). (Another volume, More Paradoxes, was published separately after his death.) Paradoxes of Faith is packed with brilliant passages like the one above, which is why I had to read it slowly over several months so as not to wear myself out dancing after each aphorism (a few of which I shared back in December). 

In the introduction to the book, de Lubac notes the fragmentary and partial nature of aphorisms, and in the same way, a discussion of a collections of aphorisms must itself be fragmentary and partial. But I will try to give an idea of the spirit of de Lubac’s thought and of some of the central concerns ofParadoxes of Faith, quoting liberally along the way.

What is Paradox?

The book is divided into subheadings such as “Witness,” “Adaptation,” “Spirit,” “Man,” “Suffering,” “Socialization,” and “Interiority.” The first chapter, though, is a meditation on paradox itself:

Paradox is the search or wait for synthesis. It is the provisional expression of a view which remains incomplete, but whose orientation is ever towards fulness…. The universe itself, our universe in growth, is paradoxical. The synthesis of the world has not been made. As each truth becomes better known, it opens up a fresh area for paradox.

While paradoxes involve apparent contradictions, they are not the kind of apparent contradictions which arise from an error in reasoning. In such cases, the “paradox” would disappear when the error was corrected.

Rather, a true paradox is the result of a finite human mind attempting to comprehend the infinite God and the infinite transcendence of reality. We are incapable of encompassing the whole, so that any true propositions we come up with necessarily only deal with aspects of things. (They are, like the aphorism itself, “partial and fragmentary,” which is why de Lubac thought it appropriate to express paradoxes in that form, so as to avoid the pretense to full understanding.)

Because of our incomplete mode of understanding, it is inevitable that propositions will arise which are apparently contradictory, yet which we know to be true. For example, God is both infinitely just and infinitely merciful. Not only that, but Catholics say that God’s justice and mercy are one and the same. So we know that there is no true contradiction between divine justice and divine mercy, and yet because we are incapable of understanding how they are the same, the apparent contradiction is inescapable.

Seeing this apparent contradiction where there is none is not an error; it is simply the only way human beings can see things. We may know the contradiction is only apparent, but because we can never understand the whole, any attempt to resolve the tension will necessarily end by eliminating a truth. Paradox appears when we refuse to sacrifice one truth to another:

[Paradoxes] suppose an antinomy: one truth upsets us, another truth balances it. The second truth does not restrict the first, but only places it in the proper perspective. It will not lead us to say "So it was only that." For paradoxical truth is not limited to one place. That is why, most of the time, neither Christ nor Saint Paul explained a paradox. They feared a foolish interpretation less than one which would debase the truth and deprive it of its "heroism".

Not only are such antinomies irresolvable, but each “opposing” truth strengthens the other by its very opposition:

[Paradoxes] are the for fed by the against, the against going so far as to identify itself with the for; each of them moving into the other, without letting itself be abolished by it and continuing to oppose the other, but so as to give it vigor.

De Lubac uses Purgatory as an example of this dynamic of paradox, in that “Not only is the soul suffering in Purgatory joyful, but its suffering makes its joy.”

Will the Real Prince of Paradox Please Stand Up?

Perhaps it is worth comparing de Lubac’s approach to paradox with that of the “prince of paradox,” G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton’s paradoxes, at their best, are of the kind described above—he points out truths seemingly in opposition. Yet he also uses paradox as a rhetorical device, stating something in the form of a paradox in order to challenge an assumption and get us to see things in a new way. Often it functions at both levels so that the rhetorical paradox is used to point out the deeper kind.  Sometimes, though, Chesterton’s paradoxes are merely rhetorical.

For de Lubac, however, “the word specifies, above all…things themselves, not the way of saying them.” A merely rhetorical paradox can be used to subvert or bypass logic, and so runs the risk of being a mere trick which crumbles into incoherence when examined closely. But in de Lubac we have not so much a “paradoxical” mode of thought or expression as a sober meditation on paradoxes really existing in reality. Simply put, “Paradox, in the best sense, is objectivity.”

Respect the Mystery!

If paradox can be seen as a kind of objectivity, for de Lubac, “Mystical life is its triumph.” To respect paradox is to respect mystery, and if there is a central concern in these aphorisms on a wide range of subjects, it seems to be the defense of mystery.

De Lubac warns against all forms of reductionism where faith is concerned, against intellectualism (“Professors of religion are always liable to transform Christianity into a religion of professors”) on one hand and, on the other, popularization, propaganda and premature adaptation (“They are wondering how to be adapted. They should first know how to be”; “The first question is not ‘how to present’ but ‘how to see’ and ‘how to think’”).

He puts us on guard against the reductions of psychology, sociology, physiology, as well as that of superficial historical criticism:

Christianity, it is said, owes this, that and the other to Judaism. It has borrowed this, that and the other from Hellenism. Or from Essenism. Everything in it is mortgaged from birth…

Are people naive enough to believe, before making a detailed study, that the supernatural excludes the possession of any earthly roots and any human origin? So they open their eyes and thereby shut them to what is essential, or, to put it better, to everything: whence has Christianity borrowed Jesus Christ? Now, in Jesus Christ, “all things are made new”.

Still more subtle and dangerous is the reduction of dogma to theology:

Dogma is a vast domain which theology will never wholly exploit. There is always infinitely more in Dogma, considered in its concrete totality, that is to say, in the very Object of divine revelation, than in this "human science of revelation", in this product of analysis and rational elaboration which theology always is. The latter, in its very truth, will always—and all the more in that it will always be rationally formulated—be inadequate for Dogma; for it is indeed the explanation of it, but not the fulness. This weakness is congenital. True theology knows that. It does not confuse the orders.

We are challenged to accept nothing less than the faith in all its transcendence.

De Lubac often illuminates matters of the spirit negatively, by contrast with a shallow, worldly approach, as in the following:

Taking sides is one thing, committing ourselves is another. The first may involve violence, and remain superficial. The second, on the contrary, is a decision made in the depths of our being, and the positive is so dominant an element, that often we are not even involved in any opposition.

(Needless to say, de Lubac’s thought is antipathetic to the contemporary reduction of faith to politics.)

Lest I give the impression that de Lubac is primarily concerned with putting out fires, I should say that Paradoxes of Faith is chock-full of positive wisdom about human nature and the life of the spirit. I will close by quoting a few of my favorites:

• “Respect for man is composed mostly of respect for his suffering.”
• “The conformist looks at things—even things of the spirit—from the outside. The obedient soul sees things—even things of the letter—from the inside.”
• “Even if man's happiness can be looked for in the future, his dignity can be respected only in the present. In conflicting circumstances one must choose dignity before happiness, both for oneself and for others. Only in this way can both be safeguarded at once.”

Fr. Raymond Sunday 10th, Homily

Reception 3 p.m.
Raymond at crossword

Gospel   John 15:9-17

 

Sun 6 Easter 2015
Fr. Raymond Homily

Jesus said to his disciples: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." Then he launches into an all embracing description of love. His description covers not only love as found among men, love as the world knows it, but also that love which is the source and the origin of all love: the love that is the inner life of the blessed Trinity itself; This is as much as to say that "The Love that binds the Blessed Trinity itself together is the blueprint for all created love, whether it is found among men or even among angels. There is no other source or fountain of true love. There is no other way we can genuinely love other than as the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.
We are made in God’s image and likeness.

The next point Jesus makes is to say that love and joy go together, where one

is loved and knows oneself to be loved, then although the whole world may collapse around us, we will still be at peace deep within ourselves, because the very groundwork of our existence, the sense of our self worth is assured for us. "My joy will be in you" He says.

But then comes another aspect of the picture of love: Jesus teaches us the essential altruism of love. "A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends" he says. Love gives and doesn't count the cost, and who was to be a greater example of this than himself on Calvary? "And it is you who are my friends" He says. I will not call you servants any more. You are my friends.

Jesus then defines this friendship in terms of the intimate knowledge and sharing that true friends have with each other. And again he compares this knowledge with the mutual knowledge that exists between himself and his heavenly Father. "I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father" he says. The mind boggles and the heart misses a beat at the import of these words: "I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father". They underline and confirm for us those other 'unbelievable' words of St John: "We will be like Him for we shall see Him as he is."

Gospel Sixth Sunday of Easter - May 10, 2015 Fr. Bill Grimm

COMMENT:  

U.K. General Election 7 May 2015; 

The village of Garvald. East Lothian, had the Polling Station.

The community of Sancta Maria Abbey, all who wished, made their votes. 

Frs. Leonard and Raymond at the exit Polling

Religious orders:

Monks from Sancta Maria Abbey in Nunraw cast their votes at a polling station in Garvald, East Lothian,

while Tyburn nuns vote at St John's Hyde Park,

Central London

The Sisters of Tyburn Convent, London

 The Scottish Mail

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3071533/Now-talking-stops-Britain-goes-polls-unpredictable-election-generation-one-four-don-t-know-vote-for.html#ixzz3ZeYYyEi5 

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Sunday Gospel Reflection With Fr. Bill Grimm

International May 08, 2015 Today's continuation of our Easter celebration is a joyous proclamation of the great love God shows in calling us to be united with Christ. It is a day to look at our faults and failings and put them in perspective.

DGO Gospel:
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John15:9-17.

Jesus said to his disciples: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.  ..... Commentary of the day : 

Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church 

Sermons on St. John, no. 65 

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love.”

The Lord Jesus affirms that he is giving his disciples a new commandment: that of mutual love… Did this commandment not already exist in the Old Law, since it is written: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18)? So why does the Lord call "new" a commandment that was so obviously old? Is it a new commandment because, in stripping us of the old man, he clothes us with the new one (Eph 4:24)? Certainly, the person who listens to this commandment, or rather, who obeys it, is not renewed by just any love but by the love that the Lord carefully distinguishes from purely natural love, when he says, “as I have loved you.” … Christ gave us the new commandment to love one another as he has loved us. This is the love that renews us, that makes us into new persons, heirs to the new covenant, singers of the “new song” (Ps 96:1).

Dearly beloved, this love renewed even the righteous ones of past times, the patriarchs and the prophets, just as it later renewed the holy apostles. It is the love that now renews the pagan nations. This love raises up and gathers together a new people from the entire human race scattered over the whole earth, the body of the new Spouse of the Son of God.

Sancta Maria Abbey The Scottish Mail Election 7 May 2015 Exit Polling news

 

Fw: Daily Mail includes the Monks at Garvald exit polling  

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Donald Nunraw <nunrawdonald@yahoo.com>

To: Mark ...

Cc: etc....

Sent: Saturday, 9 May 2015, 16:05
Subject: Daily Mail includes the Monks at Garvald exit polling

Religious orders: Monks from Sancta Maria Abbey in Nunraw cast their votes at a polling station in Garvald, East Lothian while nuns vote at St John's Hyde Park, Central London

 

Frs. Leonard and Raymond  

     Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3071533/Now-talking-stops-Britain-goes-polls-unpredictable-election-generation-one-four-don-t-know-vote-for.html#ixzz3ZeYYyEi5 

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

Other pictures in Blogspot to come

Britain goes to polls in most unpredictable election in a generation

				Britain goes to polls in most unpredictable election in ... David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the other party leaders have all been to their local polling station as an exclusive poll for the Daily Mail by ComRes puts the Torie...
				View on www.dailymail.co.uk	Preview by Yahoo

 

 

     Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website)     

Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk, Doneword :http://www.donewill.blogspot.co.uk    |domdonald.org.uk,   Emails: nunrawdonald@yahoo.com, nunrawdonald@gmail.com

Christ the lord has risen today

                     Easter is an Alleluia Day 

    

'mystic' Karl Rahner, 'Christ the vine' Cyril of Alexandria

Bearing Much Fruit

Christ the True Vine       

  http://www.catholiclane.com/bearing-much-fruit/christ-the-true-vine/    

COMMENT:

The Gospel of Sunday of 5^th Week of Easter is repeated on Wednesday of the week.

Gospel John 15:1-8, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ...."

For the Sunday Homily, we are indebted to Redemptorist Publication 'The Living Word, quoting Karl Rahner, "The Christian of the future will either be a 'mystic' ... or ... will cease to be anything at all."  

For the Tuesday Patristic Reading, John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop

(Lib. 10, 2: PG 74, 331-334),
I am the vine, you are the branches

"Make your home in me, as I make mine in you."

Illustration

Karl Rahner SJ, one of the great theologians of the last century, wrote many books in which he tried to make sense of the Catholic faith for his contemporaries. That's what a theologian has to do. Towards the end of his life he wrote an influential essay on the future of the Christian faith. It began with this provocative statement: "The Christian of the future will either be a 'mystic' ... or ... will cease to be anything at all."

Did he mean that we must all have visions like St Teresa of Avila? Karl Rahner thought that the old Catholic culture that he had known as a boy was fast disappearing, eroded by an increasingly secular world. It meant that the average Christian could not depend on a Christian culture that everyone took for granted. So he thought that unless Christians had a deep and personal experience of God they would not be able to keep up the practice of their faith. That is all he meant by saying that each person needed to be a mystic. No matter how big the institutional Church seems to be, if its members do not have in them the life blood of a personal encounter with God, then it will wither away.

Gospel Teaching

Jesus took for granted that his Jewish faith needed laws and institutions like the Temple if it was going to transmit its message to the next generation. And so he knew that his Church must be built on the rock of Peter; then God would preserve it from all its enemies. But in today's Gospel, he tells his disciples at the Last Supper that if they are to survive they must remain close to him. He takes the image of the vineyard, which was used to represent Israel in the Old Testament, and in a sense identifies himself with it by saying: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser."

If the disciples are to survive then they must be branches of Jesus, the vine. And just as a vine is pruned to make it more fruitful, the disciples will also grow by being tested in their faith. Jesus tells them to remain close to him and have the living sap flowing in their branches, or else they will shrivel up. He insists that at the heart of their faith there is this close personal relationship with him: "Make your home in me, as I make mine in you." As they are united in Christ so they will be united through him to the Father. But this experience is not just for special members of the Church, like the apostles. The Spirit is given to everyone. All are called to have this "mystic" experience of being so close to Christ in their daily life that they produce good fruit.

Application

It is easy to get carried along by externals. The Church is essential to our faith. We cannot say, as some do, that we want Jesus but not the Church. In the Creed we affirm our belief in Jesus Christ and also in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church". The institutional Church is a key part of our faith, but there is always the danger of just going through the motions and dying on the vine. The institution will shrivel unless its members have the sap of the living Christ flowing through them.

As Karl Rahner pointed out, it is much more difficult now to be carried along by other people's faith in a society that is both secular and often hostile to our beliefs. How can we produce the fruit that will show that Christ's Church is alive and well? We do not need to be mystics like some of the great saints, but to make sure our practice of the faith, whether it is going to Mass or saying our prayers, is firmly based on a close personal relationship with Jesus. We don't at first have to do anything but rather to be at peace in his presence, to allow him to dwell in us: Then we can share a deep communion with him as we receive his body and blood in the Eucharist. If we change the image from sap, we could say that his real presence in his blood gives us new life. If we do have this close relationship of the branch to the "true vine", then it will produce good fruits especially in the way we love God and one another.

Summary

1.                   We are all called to have a personal experience of God.

2.                   The institutional Church is necessary but its members must be branches of Christ, the vine; we will only be alive if we dwell in him and he in us.

3.                   Our faith is to be inspired by this personal close relationship with Christ so that the Church will produce good fruits.  +++++++++++  

iBreviary

Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Type: Weekday - Time: Easter

Office of Readings

SECOND READING

From a commentary on the gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
(Lib. 10, 2: PG 74, 331-334)

I am the vine, you are the branches

The Lord calls himself the vine and those united to him branches in order to teach us how much we shall benefit from our union with him, and how important it is for us to remain in his love. By receiving the Holy Spirit, who is the bond of union between us and Christ our Savior, those who are joined to him, as branches are to a vine, share in his own nature.

On the part of those who come to the vine, their union with him depends upon a deliberate act of the will; on his part, the union is effected by grace. Because we had good will, we made the act of faith that brought us to Christ, and received from him the dignity of adoptive sonship that made us his own kinsmen, according to the words of Saint Paul: He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

The prophet Isaiah calls Christ the foundation, because it is upon him that we as living and spiritual stones are built into a holy priesthood to be a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. Upon no other foundation than Christ can this temple be built. Here Christ is teaching the same truth by calling himself the vine, since the vine is the parent of its branches, and provides their nourishment.

From Christ and in Christ, we have been reborn through the Spirit in order to bear the fruit of life; not the fruit of our old, sinful life but the fruit of a new life founded upon our faith in him and our love for him. Like branches growing from a vine, we now draw our life from Christ, and we cling to his holy commandment in order to preserve this life. Eager to safeguard the blessing of our noble birth, we are careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and who makes us aware of God’s presence in us.

Let the wisdom of John teach us how we live in Christ and Christ lives in us: The proof that we are living in him and he is living in us is that he has given us a share in his Spirit. Just as the trunk of the vine gives its own natural properties to each of its branches, so, by bestowing on them the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, gives Christians a certain kinship with himself and with God the Father because they have been united to him by faith and determination to do his will in all things. He helps them to grow in love and reverence for God, and teaches them to discern right from wrong and to act with integrity.

RESPONSORY
John 15:4, 16

Live in me as I live in you.
– Just as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself apart from the vine,
so you cannot bear fruit unless you live on in me, alleluia.

I chose you to go out and bear fruit,
a fruit that will last.
– Just as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself apart from the vine,
so you cannot bear fruit unless you live on in me, alleluia.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

Father,
you restored your people to eternal life
by raising Christ your Son from death.
Make our faith strong and our hope sure.
May we never doubt that you will fulfill
the promises you have made.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Dom Donald's Blog: May of Mary. Gospel Fifth Sunday of the Easter B -...

Dom Donald's Blog: May of Mary. Gospel Fifth Sunday of the Easter B -...: Our Lady of Month of May; Remember, China,   "Our Lady of Sheshan". Sunday Gospel Reflection With Fr. Bill Grimm 2015.05.03   ...

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