Grafted for Serving
Easter Sunday5 (06 May 2012)
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
While waiting for an early morning health appointment, I perused an article about gardening. It featured a balcony-garden plan, advertising a large planter-box more versatile and attractive than a terra-cotta alternative. “Not if one likes earthenware,” I thought. However, the author seemed not to prefer earthenware.
Paul’s story became a story shared as Barnabas related it to the disciples. Barnabas was called the son of consolation, and he lived his name by rescuing Paul and dispelling the fear, which gripped the disciples. Barnabas was not the sole agent of consolation. He was the choice of Holy Spirit for that occasion. The consolation of the Holy Spirit gave growth to the church through him.
Jesus, like rabbis before him, named Holy Spirit Consoler. That’s what Paraclete means. What effect does Holy Spirit’s consolation have? One is boldness. As Barnabas described Paul, the former murderer of disciples of Jesus had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. The disciples recognized themselves in Paul because they had been frightened to proclaim Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Holy boldness is a gift of Holy Spirit, and it allows us to love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.
Spiritual consolation also allows us to see differently, or better to see with the vision of our Messiah and Lord. We need to be careful lest we think that have Jesus in our pocket instead of trying to measure up to the vision of Jesus, which he calls his church to do. For a long time the church did act presumptuously instead of allowing Jesus’ vision to be its measure. Today’s gospel and the way the church saw itself until the Second Vatican Council provide us with one example.
Jesus had thought that organic way not the way that had become the standard way of thinking among Catholics. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. ...Abide in me, as I abide in you. ...I am the vine, you are the branches. [Those who] abide in me and I in [them] will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Vine and branches allows the church to see authority as servant-leadership, which Jesus modeled, and which Catholics have recovered thanks to the Second Vatican Council.
Holy Spirit is the energy of our growth as branches grafted to Jesus, our vine. Our limitations as earthen vessels are opportunities for Jesus, his Father and their Holy Spirit to give growth to the People of God and to the world through us. Our spiritual reshaping affects more than us. It is the beginning of bearing fruit for the sake of our world.
In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week
- Continue to feel recreated by the life of our triune God.
- Ask St. Barnabas to present you to Jesus.
- Converse with Jesus, naming ways that you abide in him and ways that you separate yourself from him.
- Ask for the grace to join yourself to Jesus more completely.
- Close saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer. Each time we pray it it helps us measure up to Jesus’ vision and to praise Jesus in deed and truth.
Link to this homily’s Spiritual Exercise
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- The Second Vatican Council expressed the mystery of the vine and branches as Jesus, people of God and roles in the church in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium). It expressed the church’s relationship with the world in its Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes).
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Wiki-images of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra and Christ the True Vine are in the public domain in the U.S.
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