Contents: Volume 2
5th SUNDAY
of
EASTER
(B)
- 4/28/2024
5th
Sunday
of
EASTER
2024 |
|
1. --
Lanie LeBlanc
OP
2. --
Dennis Keller
3. --
John Boll
OP
4. --
5. --(Your reflection
can be here!)
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1.
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5th Sunday of Easter
2024
In this day and age, it can often feel difficult to stay connected to the Vine.
Sometimes, situations occur such as scrambling to help a modern day version of
an outsider or a divergent thinker like Saul was. One can also feel rather
withered or a bit sensitive from a pruning. Then what? Then you take a breath
and feel the breath of the Holy Spirit!
It is the Holy Spirit who brought peace to the early church when conflicts
occurred. It is the same Holy Spirit, no matter the name invoked by whom, who is
alive in the world today to bring guidance, peace, and compassion to each of us.
Our Triune God indeed is greater than our worried hearts and does know us better
than we know ourselves. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing,
however, but remain downtrodden, helpless wanderers who are indeed lost.
Thanks to the One who is all knowing, all loving, all powerful, and so very
merciful, however, all of us who wander are not lost. Before Pentecost arrives,
try this: find the time to slow down and notice when you are breathing heavily.
Invoke the Holy Spirit to restore calmer breathing. Remember that the Holy
Spirit is within you at every breath you take.
Let us pray that by Pentecost, we will have revived our acquaintance with the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is always available so that we can ask for and
receive the nourishment that will help us stay connected to the Vine and, as
branches, flourish and bear good fruit.
Blessings,
Dr.
Lanie LeBlanc
OP
Southern Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one
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2.
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Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 28, 2024
Acts 9:26-31; Responsorial Psalm 22; 1st John 3:18-24;
Gospel Acclamation John 15:4, 5; John 15:1-8
Whenever we move to a new city, start a new job, begin a course of study,
register at a new parish, there is a period of time when we struggle to gain
acceptance and become a trusted person. In the first reading this Sunday from
Acts of the Apostles, Paul had that very experience. He must have been grateful
to Barnabas who introduced him around and vouched for him. The community in
Jerusalem accepted him and eventually held him dear. When the Hellenists wanted
to kill him, his newfound friends spirited him away to Caesarea and from there
to his birthplace of Tarsus in Turkey. After this threat, Luke writes that the
church in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria were at peace and the church grew in
numbers with the consolation of the Holy Spirit. That is an amazing statement.
Judeans looked down on Galileans. Galileans and Judeans looked down on
Samaritans. What a seismic change when cultures lose their power to control
human behavior. Is this a post-resurrection miracle? This is certainly a result
of the teaching, healing, and death and resurrection. Love removed the violence
of competition and pursuit of wealth, power, and fame – well for a while.
The second reading is from John’s first letter. It speaks of having confidence
in God and following God’s commandments. He spells out what God commands: we are
to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ and love one another in deed and
truth.
Those two readings set up the gospel selected for this fifth Sunday of Easter.
This is the Sunday of the Vine and the Branches. Jesus names himself the vine on
which all branches adhere. The Father is the vinedresser. We are the branches.
The branches we are, form a community of branches – of persons. Paul, with his
reputation of being a persecutor of Christians, remade his reputation after
hearing the voice of the Lord calling him to repentance. He studied, fasted,
prayed, and took the teaching and experience of Ananias and the community in
Damascus. After three years he traveled to Jerusalem to check if his
understanding and teaching to the community in Damacus was true to the teaching
of Jesus. The followers of Jesus in Jerusalem were fearful of him, remembering
his witness to the death of the deacon Stephen. Only when Barnabas vouched for
him did he become part of the community in Jerusalem. When he became part of
that community, they supported him and protected him from the Hellenists.
We become part of a community with Baptism. Becoming part of the community
brings us in contact with Jesus. By staying connected to the vine we have access
to drink and food for healing, for nourishment, and for remaining connected to
the vine. The vine keeper, the Father, prunes us from time to time, using the
forces that strike us from nature, from wild beasts, from storms and hail.
Pruning teaches us obedience. Obedience keeps us attached to the vine. Suffering
is a pruning that helps us bear much fruit. What does this much fruit mean? The
fruit can be applied to the spread and growth of the Kingdom of God. By our
actions – in deed and in truth – we bring to our place and time the message of
love and righteousness.
But that cannot happen unless we remain on the vine, unless we remain in Jesus.
We remain with Jesus by our prayers, by acceptance of suffering that comes to us
because of nature or because of the actions of bad willed persons. Such
suffering is being pruned and being supported by the Father in finding solutions
and in enduring pain and anxiety as a joining with Jesus in his suffering. We
stay connected by worshipping with the community of branches. The juice that
fosters and supports our healing, our growth, and strengthening our attachment
to the vine is from the Holy Spirit – what we commonly identify as grace. Jesus
maintained his union with the Father in love and keeping to the Will of the
Father. When branches remain in Jesus, disciples are grafted into the love of
Jesus for the Father; disciples share in that love by obeying the commands of
God and practicing love of others.
In the first reading this Sunday, John tells how we love others. This is no mere
feeling, no mere emotional connection. This love is in deeds done for others and
in truth of what and who we are. Wondering what John means when he attaches
“truth” to love of others by doing for them, this “truth” is about right
behavior. When humanity was created, there was no sin, only “right” living. With
the envy of Satan, there came evil as a choice for humans. Evil is wrong living
and a lie.
To love in deeds and in truth makes the Glory of the Father present in time and
place. The Glory of God is what is experienced when God is present. When we are
grafted onto the vine that is the Lord, we are included into the Christ. We
become cells in the Mystical Body of the Christ. We belong, we share, we gain
strength and vitality from that association. We are no longer strangers to each
other. We are then children of God and sisters and brothers to one another.
Dennis Keller
Dennis@PreacherExchange.com
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3.
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2024-04-28
some reflections on the Gospel
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Year B
Have you ever tried to make toast? you put the slices in the toaster, pushed
down on the lever and come back and nothing happened? What is the first thing
you check?
Or you grab the hose to water your plants, turn on the nozzle and nothing comes
out?
What do you do next?
Or have you ever pulled out your phone, tried to make a phone call or text, and
it doesn’t happen?
You get a warning message, “hey – you are not connected... and discover you are
still on “Airplane mode”!
It is essential to be plugged into the Source! And stay conected “Because
without me you can do nothing.”
Jesus uses the image of a Vine and Branches, to illustrate this:
“Jesus said to his disciples:
‘I am the true vine ...
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.’ ”
It is kind of hard to miss the central point of Jesus’ teaching in this Gospel.
It is Summed up in one word. “REMAIN”!
He uses the word 8 times in these verses.
I imagine he really wants to get the point across!
Probably makes sense, as he is speaking here at the Last Supper, just before his
Death.
His disciples will need a word of encouragement;
and eventually strength and empowerment!
“REMAIN in me, as I remain in you.” is not just advice, it is essential!
It is of the essence of who we are.
What is translated here as “Remain” has deep and profound meaning in the bible.
It helps to know there are many translations of the Greek and Hebrew word behind
the “remain” of our translation: and serves to point to the importance to remain
in Jesus.
“Remain” “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in
them.”
“Stay” Jesus first two disciples in John’s Gospel ask Jesus, “where are you
staying”
Abide “And now my children, abide in him, that when he is revealed, we shall not
be ashamed before him, but we shall have boldness at his arrival.”
Dwell “The word became flesh and dwelt among us”
Continue “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue
in my word, then you are my disciples indeed”
The importance is this: To Remain is of the essence of God. Who is an indwelling
of persons, that is revealed as relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. The divine life is the source that creates us and in which we have life
and are empowered to grow and bear fruit (live into fulfillment)
To separate from this source is to run out of the energy of life and wither, and
cut ourselves away from the vine.
to restrict the flow of life from God will leave us weak and suffering, in need
of prunning.
To go over to a False Vine, is to lose our connection with the True source of
our life.
The nature of this life is seen in the fruit of loving others into life.
As the triune God did in creating us,
as the divine Word did in emptying itself to become one with us.
And as Jesus shows us in the giving of his living and dying, that we might have
life.
So it is essential we remain, abide, stay, continue, live, and dwell in the
vine.
Allowing the Vine Grower
to re-graft us in onto the vine when we find ourselves separated,
to prune what blocks the flow of divine life within and through us,
reshaping us into healthy fruitful branches that bare the much fruit in love
John Boll,
OP
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4.
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5.
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Volume 2
is for you. Your thoughts, reflections, and insights on the next Sundays
readings can influence the preaching you hear. Send them to preacherexchange@att.net.
Deadline is Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
-- Fr.
John Boll,
OP
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