Fr. Michael Williams

I must admit I am not very good with plants. I had a plant in my room at Cathedral House, but it died so I had to throw it in the wheely bin. Now I have another plant in my room and its doing very well. But that is because it’s a cactus and they look after themselves. You don’t have to do anything with them. For plants to flourish they normally need looking after; to be given regular care and attention.

The plant that Jesus describes Himself as being like is the vine: “I am the true vine”, he says. The vine produces grapes that have to be crushed to produce wine. Jesus was crushed on Good Friday to produce a harvest of eternal life for us. By dying on the cross Our Lord opened up the way to Heaven for us. Just as the grape is crushed to produce wine; so too Jesus was crushed to produce the joy of heaven. Jesus is also the Vine because He produces the spiritual drink that quenches our spiritual thirst. It is wine that is transformed into His Precious Blood at Mass that feeds us and bread transformed into His Body also. By being fed with Holy Communion we are united to the Vine in a special way. We are also united to Jesus through prayer and good works.

When we are united to Jesus we become like branches on the Vine: “I am the Vine, you are the branches”, He says. Being truly united to Jesus means we will produce good fruit. The following is good fruit according to the Church: ‘To feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to help the homeless, to visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned, to bury the dead, to warn sinners, to instruct the uninformed, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to be patient with those in error, to forgive offences, to pray for the living’. If we practise some of those things then we are producing good fruit; but if we don’t then we ought to. Jesus practised all of those things, that is why He is the fruitful Vine; He wants us to follow suit.

We can only produce good things for God if we remain united to Him. “Whoever remains in me…bears fruit in plenty”. I remember at the age of sixteen I made a conscious decision to stop going to Church; I disunited myself from the Church, from the Body of Christ. Looking back I can see that I soon became quite selfish only thinking about myself; but a few years later when I returned to the Church, the Body of Christ I started thinking about others again.

Jesus describes God the Father as “the vinedresser”; the One who looks after the vine and branches. Sometimes God knows that we need pruning; the dead wood needs cutting away from our lives. Because if the dead wood completely takes over without being checked then the danger is that we become “like a branch that has been thrown away…these branches are collected and thrown on the fire, and they are burnt”. We know what Jesus is referring to here, don’t we?

That old plant I tried to grow in my room ended up in a wheelie bin, because it became dead wood. It’s the same in the spiritual life; not to produce good fruit for the Lord would mean being thrown into a spiritual wheelie bin called Hell. But if we remain in Jesus, and “remain part of the Vine…bearing fruit in plenty”, then we give glory to God and make the world a better place in the process.