Vigils Reading – 5th Sunday of Easter

WITHOUT GOD, NOTHING CAN BE DONE

From a commentary by St Augustine1

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The passage from the gospel in which the Lord calls himself the vine and

his disciples the branches affirms in its own way that, as mediator between God

and the human race, the man Christ Jesus is head of the Church and we are his

members. It is beyond dispute that a vine and its branches are of one and the

same stock. Since Christ, therefore, possessed a divine nature not shared by

ourselves, he became man precisely in order that in his own person there might

be a vine of human stock whose branches we could become.

Dwell in me, said Jesus, and I will dwell in you. His disciples, however,

do not dwell in Christ in the same way as Christ dwells in them. In either case,

the benefit is theirs, not his. If branches are attached to a vine, it is not to confer

any advantage on the vine; it is rather that the branches themselves may draw

their sustenance from the vine. The vine is attached to the branches to provide

them with their vital nourishment, not to receive anything from them. In the

same way Christ’s presence in his disciples and their presence in him both profit

the disciples rather than Christ. If a branch is cut off, another can grow from the

life-giving root; but once severed from the root, no branch can remain alive.

The incarnate Truth goes on to say: I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever dwells in me and I in him yields fruit in plenty, because without me

you can do nothing. These words are to be weighed and pondered continually.

Someone hearing Jesus say, he yields fruit in plenty, might perhaps think that

a branch can bear at least a certain amount of fruit on its own. Our Lord’s words,

however, were not: You can do little without me, but: you can do nothing. Little

fruit or plenty, there can be neither without him, because without him nothing

can be done. Even if a branch does produce a little fruit, the vinedresser prunes

it away so that it may produce more. But if the branch does not remain attached

to the vine and draw its life from the root, it can bear no fruit at all.

Now, although Christ could not be the vine if he were not human, he could

not offer such a grace to his branches if he were not at the same time divine.

Since without this grace it is impossible to have life and consequently death is

the result of one’s free choice, he said: Whoever does not dwell in me will be

thrown away like a branch and will wither, to be gathered in and cast on the

fire to burn. And so the shame incurred by those branches that refuse to dwell

in the vine is in direct proportion to the glory they will have if they do remain in

him.

If you dwell in me, said Jesus, and my words dwell in you, you will ask

for whatever you desire and it will be yours. Can a person dwelling in Christ

desire anything out of harmony with Christ? The very fact that people dwell in

their Savior must mean that they have no desire that is opposed to their

salvation. And yet we do indeed desire one thing insofar as we are in Christ, and

another insofar as we are still in this world. Because of our sojourn here below,

a thought sometimes steals into our ignorant minds to ask for something which

cannot be good for us. But this may not be, if we are dwelling in Christ. He does

what we ask only if it is for our good. To dwell in him, therefore, is to have his

words dwelling in us; whatever we desire we shall then ask for, and it will be

given us.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 56.3