The Open Secret of a Truly Happy and Successful Life, Fifth Sunday of Easter (B), April 28, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B
April 28, 2024
Acts 9:26-31, Ps 22, 1 John 3:18-24, John 15:1-8

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• When you ask most people, especially young people, what they ultimately want out of life, questions increasingly on the mind of those preparing to graduate, most give two interrelated answers: they want to be happy and they want to leave the world a better place. Both good, solid answers, based not only on human nature, as Aristotle himself observed, but also out of a natural goodness to improve their situation and that of others. And in pursuit of these goals, they study hard and work diligently throughout childhood, adolescence, university, graduate school, and decades of labor striving for that happiness and that impact. And for those who marry and have children, they lovingly sacrifice to give their children not only that same shot at happiness and success but hope that their children will be happier and more successful than they are.
• But with regard to both of these goals, their horizons can often remain flat. They look at happiness fundamentally as contentment, the possession of certain earthly markers like health, a good profession and the money it provides, a good home in a decent neighborhood, a loving family, loyal friends, a good reputation and so on. Most look at leaving the world a better place not in terms of achievements that will make them famous in future history books and Wikipedia pages but rather in terms of making a difference in the lives of others, beginning with those closest to them, but also perhaps helping those they have never met both now and in future generations.
• I call these goals flat because, looked at from a Christian perspective, they’re not ambitious enough. Sure, people want happiness, but for how long? 70 or 80 years? And they want to make a difference, but, likewise, what type of difference and for how long? Two or three generations? The question that our materialist and consumerist age often gets us to forget —not to mention an educational system focused more and more on the practical pursuit of internships and jobs rather than on the big questions of human life — is the important question, “And then what?” Like a competitor on an obstacle course, we go from obstacle to obstacle without really asking what awaits at the end of the course and whether justifies all the effort. We presume that what we’re doing — studies, labors, sacrifices and the like — will all lead to what we desire, but as we’ve seen in the lives of so many of those who seemed to have checked off all the boxes and become wildly successful in worldly terms, they are often miserable in the midst of their fame and fortune, alone despite millions of social media followers, and feel like personal failures despite all their patents and discoveries. And so we have to have the courage and wisdom to step off the wheel in the rat race and ask the question, “And then what?” What’s next after Columbia? If grad school, then what’s next after grad school? If work, then what’s after work? If that’s ascending the corporate ladder or founding one or more companies, then what’s after that? If then marriage, not before, then what’s next? If family, then what happens when the kid or kids leave home? If grandkids, then what happens when the grand kids similarly achieve adulthood? If retirement, and travel, and volunteer work, then what’s after that? If inevitably more funerals of friends and family, gradual decline, and one’s own nearing and crossing the finish line of earthly life, then what? There’s an aphorism that if we don’t know where we’re going, any road will do. But when we do have a clear sense of the end, then we can more easily choose the means.
• This is the context to understand what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel in his famous image of the Vine and the Branches. It’s in the context of a chapter in which he focuses on his joy being in us and our joy being made complete (Jn 15:11). He wants us to be happy and not just for a specific period of time, like when we’re children or at college, but forever. Similarly in this image he focuses on what we need to do to, as he says tonight, “bear fruit that will last,” last not just for a year or two, or a decade or two, or a century or two, but last forever. He was saying these words to the apostles on Holy Thursday night, as they were about to have all of their earthly ambitions shattered, as Jesus would be arrested, interrogated, falsely convicted, tortured, crucified and murdered, and their hopes for posh positions in a worldly messianic administration would die with him. Jesus was preaching these words knowing that his apostles that night would all scatter, but he also knew that all 11 of them would return, reflect on his words anew in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, resolve to live them, and go throughout the whole world to help others live them, too. And so let’s look at what Jesus says to us about how we’re supposed to relate to him — individually and together as his Mystical Body the Church —  as branches to the vine and how, he says, through that communion we will be able to achieve things that will last until eternity.
• When Jesus used the image of the Vine and the Branches, the apostles would have heard them within a very rich context. This image of the fruitful union of God and his chosen people was foretold throughout the Old Testament. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the psalmist and prophets compared Israel to a vine. Psalm 80 said, “You brought a vine out of Egypt, driving away the nations and planting it. You cleared the ground; it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered by its shadow, the cedars of God by its branches. It sent out boughs as far as the sea, shoots as far as the river” (Ps 80: 9-12). Isaiah declared, “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel” (Is 5:7). Hosea added, “Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit” (Hos 10:1). All of this was depicted visually in a stunning golden relief of a vine, with clusters of grapes as big as adults, running around the outside walls of the Temple of Jerusalem. Jesus and the Church are the fulfillment of this image. The temple stands for God and when the people attach themselves with faith to God, they become a luxuriant vine stretching out branches and bearing fruit even into the desert. Jesus was doubtless calling upon his apostles’ obvious knowledge of this golden sculpture as he was describing the image of the Vine and Branches on Holy Thursday evening, because they likely would have seen the gilded vine as they visited the temple earlier in the day.
• The problem, we know from our knowledge of Sacred Scripture, is that Israel as a whole didn’t stay attached to God in this way. Even though, as Isaiah said, God had “spaded [the vineyard of Israel], cleared it of stones and planted the choicest vines,” even though he had “within it built a watchtower and hewed out a wine press, … he looked for the crop of grapes, but all it yielded was wild grapes.” God asked, “What more was there to do my for my vineyard that I had not done? Why, when I looked for the crop of grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?” He looked for it to yield good fruit, but what it yielded was wild and bitter (Is 5:2). It didn’t bear good fruit because individually and collectively his people had detached themselves from him through sin. Jesus pointed this out in one of his strongest parables, in which, after using the very images Isaiah described, he said that he sent servants to the tenants to whom he had leased this rich vineyard to bring to him a portion of the crop, but they rejected, manhandled, and even killed his servants. Finally, he sent his Son to them, but they murdered him, too, in order to try to steal the vineyard (Mk 12:1-11). This was referring to salvation history and to the way Israel, together with the whole human race through sin, treated the prophets God sent to them and treated even Jesus himself. God looked to his people to bear good fruit — which are deeds of love in union with God — but the only harvest that was yielded was the wild fruit of a sinful life, rejecting God himself through rejecting his prophets, his word, his love, even his only begotten Son.
• When Jesus, therefore, said at the beginning of today’s Gospel, “I am the true vine,” he was not only contrasting himself with the unfaithfulness of those who had failed to produce the harvest of love God wants in the world, but was announcing a new beginning. He had come to replant the vine, to become the new temple, to forgive us our sins and make possible our bearing good fruit. And he was going to do far more than that. He was going to unite us, individually and communally as the Church, into salvation history. He would, to some degree, make the fruit he would bear dependent on our being fruitful branches. A vine, we know, can’t bear fruit without branches. The stem bears only branches; it’s the branches that bear fruit. For Jesus to bear his fruit in the world, in other words, he has made himself dependent on us to remain attached to him so that we might bear that fruit. Otherwise, the great gift of God’s salvation and love won’t be seen in the world, people won’t be saved, the sap of his mercy will be wasted. This is why ultimately he created us and called us to be Christian: to participate in his divine rescue plan for the human race. Jesus wants to bear fruit in you and me. He wants his love to flow through you and me and through the Church. He trusts us enough to risk everything on our cooperation. He died and rose and sent the Holy Spirit to help us, through our choices and the time we have on earth, not bear wild grapes that are good for nothing, but rather fruit that will last to eternal life. You and I, and the Church, exist as branches on Christ the Vine precisely to bear this abundant harvest of the fruit of love.
• For that to occur, Jesus says, we must abide in him. Whether we bear good fruit or not, whether our life is ultimately successful in the final analysis, whether we experience the joy he wants us to enjoy, all depend on whether we remain in him or not, whether we live in loving union with him. Jesus had said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Mt 7:17-19). The key for us is not to worry so much about the fruit we bear as to worry about remaining attached to Jesus the True Vine and the Good Tree. In today’s Gospel Jesus points to how we will bear fruit through remaining attached to him. “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.”  When we do, he promises us, then we will bear not just a little fruit, but “much fruit.” We think about how much fruit Peter, Andrew, James, John and the other apostles bore through that communion with Jesus. We think about our Lady, about St. Mary Magdalene, about Martha and Mary of Bethany and others. We think about all those hidden figures in the early Church, relative nobodies in the eyes of the world, but as the Acts of the Apostles tells us today in the first reading, helped the Church to grow throughout Judea, Galilee, Samaria, even Antioch, because the Holy Spirit was uniting them to God and they were yielding a great harvest. We think about the saints throughout the centuries, including Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom the Vatican announced yesterday will be canonized next year, 100 years after his death at the age of 24. Through his friendship with Christ shown through daily Mass and adoration, his friendship with so many of his peers, his indefatigable but hidden and humble service of the poor, he bore so much fruit during his short time on earth, and he’s been bearing so much more fruit in the 99 years since, becoming an inspiration to so many and an intercessor for some incredible miracles. At the end of the Gospel today, Jesus says something startling: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” He says we become his disciples, his true followers, genuine Christians, not by merely being baptized, not by just coming to Mass, not by only not committing serious sins, but when we bear much fruit to the Father’s glory. He wants us to be his disciples and, therefore, he wants to give us all the help he knows we need to bear much fruit. He will tell us later in this same chapter of St. John’s Gospel, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last.” That’s our fundamental Christian vocation.
• To bear fruit, Jesus tells us, we must remain in him. To abide in him is far more than a wish to be in communion with him. It has many practical consequences that we see throughout the Gospel. We can focus briefly on five things Jesus tells us we need to do truly to remain in him so that we may be perfected in joy and bear fruit together with him.
  • First, to remain in him, we must keep His Commandments. He tells us just after today’s Gospel passage, “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” (Jn 15:10). St. John’s in today’s epistle said, “All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them” (1 John 3:24). The fourth evangelist also cautions us today against thinking we are abiding in Jesus when we really aren’t. “Whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.” To walk as Jesus walked, to put the faith into action as he did, means to follow him on the path of self-sacrificial love. That’s why, later on in this Chapter of the Vine and the Branches, Jesus will say to us, “Love one another as I have loved you.” We will not remain in the Vine unless we’re loving, and loving means not just having nice, sympathetic feelings for others, but sacrificing ourselves for them. St. John tells us today, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” He wants our love to be not virtue signaling, but translated into virtuous acts in which we really care for those in need. St. John will tell us a little after the passage in today’s second reading, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). We can’t love God unless we’re keeping his commandment to love one another just as he loved us, unless, therefore, we’re sacrificing for others and forgiving others. If we’re stingy following Jesus’ command to love others as he has loved us, if we ignore those in need or just give the minimum so that we can keep a certain human respect, it could very well be a sign of how little we are abiding in the Lord and in his love, why we might be bearing little fruit, no fruit, or bad fruit, and why we’re not yet as happy as God wants us to be.
  • Second, to abide in Jesus, we must listen to his word. St. John tells us, “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24). We must be men and women who abide in the Word of God, who let what God has said to us from the beginning echo within us. We must act on what Jesus said to the devil, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). We must live by the principle by which St. Peter and the apostles lived: “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). If we don’t know the word of God, if our Bibles just take up space on our bookshelves, if we don’t seek to become living commentaries on what God has taught us, then we will bear little fruit and experience little happiness. Prayerfully letting our life develop according to God’s word, like the Blessed Mother did, is an open secret, and pre-condition, to happiness and fruitfulness.
  • That leads to the third point: to abide in Jesus, we must be pruned by God the Father through the Word of God. Jesus tells us today that the Father “takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.” The Word of God is like a “two-edged sword, … penetrating even joins and marrow” (Heb 4:12), helping us to cut off from our lives whatever won’t bear fruit in God. It helps us to set our priorities straight. It assists us, for example, not only to cut out the toxin of sin from our life but also to excise all the time we waste, for example, on our screens and in various distractions, so that we use our gift of time, not for selfish or sinful pursuits, not for worthless diversions, but for God and in love of others. Often we can do some of the pruning ourselves, through good resolutions flowing from times of prayer or rom retreats, so that our energies can go more and more into bearing fruit. But sometimes, when we can’t do so or don’t on our own, God the Father may out of love prune us himself, taking away certain relationships or things — often even good relationships and things — so that we may begin to grow in the joyful and fruitful way God wants us to grow. To remain in Jesus means to give God permission to do this pruning and to pray about how he wants us to be pruned, every day, so that we might cooperate in that important work.
  • Fourth, to remain in him, we must spread the faith. St. John writes, “God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.” (1John 4:15). If God really abides in us and we in him, then we can’t help but spread love of him, as naturally as a good apple tree bears good, juicy, delicious apples. We can’t keep to ourselves the joy of living the faith, the happiness that comes from having Christ within. We become like the early Church, which St. Luke tells us in the first reading “with the consolation of the Holy Spirit grew in numbers.” If we are not actively trying to share the gift of our faith with others, so that they might be able to become branches on Christ the Vine and experience his life and love, then it is a tell-tale sign that our own faith is sterile and that we might be detached one way or the other from Christ.
  • Lastly, to remain in him, we must live a truly Eucharistic life. Jesus told us in his famous Bread of Life discourse in St. John’s Gospel, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (Jn 6:56). In Holy Communion Jesus comes to abide in us like for nine months at the beginning of his earthly life he abided in Mary. He abides in us, but we’re called likewise to abide in him. This begins, intentionally, even before we receive him in Holy Communion, through hungering to receive him in Holy Communion. The abiding continues through striving to unite our whole life to him and through remaining in a loving communion with all others who have entered in holy communion with him. And it flourishes in wanting to bear fruit and “do this in memory of him,” to give our body and blood out of love for him and others.
• So to help us abide in him, he has given us the gift of his commandments of love, his word, the Father’s pruning, so many people with whom to share the faith, and the gift of the Holy Eucharist. Pope Francis, this morning, preaching in Venice, encouraged us all, “to safeguard the priceless gift that is the bond with Him, on which our life and our fruitfulness depend. He insistently repeats: ‘Remain in me and I in you.’ … This is what matters: remaining in the Lord, abiding in Him. …This verb, to remain, should not be interpreted as something static, as if it wanted tell us to stand still, parked in passivity; in truth, it invites us to get moving, because remaining in the Lord means growing, … growing in relationship with Him, dialoguing with Him, welcoming His Word, following Him on the path to the Kingdom of God, …  and becoming witnesses of his love. … By remaining united with Christ we will be able to bring the fruits of the Gospel into the reality we live in: fruits of justice and peace, fruits of solidarity and mutual care.” And we know that Jesus together with God the Father sends the Holy Spirit upon us to help us remain in him in all of these ways, as St. John tells us at the end of the second reading, stating that “the way we know that [Jesus] remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.” The Holy Spirit, through that mutual abiding with Christ he makes possible, also helps to find the fruit of joy and to make a difference that will last forever, like Mary, the apostles, the members of the early Church, soon-to-be Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati and more.
• I finish with an image from the chapel of the North American College in the Vatican where I spent five-plus years preparing for the priesthood under the guidance of now Cardinal Dolan. The NAC chapel has so much beautiful art in it, mosaics, murals, sculptures. It’s normal for visitors to look up and around with pupil-dilating wonder. But perhaps the greatest message of all in the chapel is symbolically at everyone’s feet. When I used to lead tours, I would ask them to look at the floor and see if they could discern any symbolic Biblical message. The marble in the sanctuary where the altar and all the priest concelebrants would be, was reddish purple, as was the nave, but underneath the pews, where all the seminarians and guest were, the marble alternated between reddish purple and white. Most couldn’t decipher what the different colors of marble meant. Then I’d give a clue: “Think about John 15.” That’s when the more Biblically literate would speak up and say, “It’s supposed to be the Vine and the Branches!” The central image of the chapel is meant to illustrate what the Church is and how each of us and the Church as a whole finds joy and bears fruit. Everything starts from Christ in the sanctuary, from his gift of himself of his body and blood. But then it flows from Christ, the head of the Church, into his entire Mystical Body. That’s what happens in the Mass, which is the living summary of this Gospel of the vine and the branches. We consecrate the “fruit of the vine,” the true vine squeezed out during the Passion of the Lord on the Cross, but we also consecrate the “work of human hands,” the work of us who are the branches. God the Father returns this to us as our “spiritual drink,” which we offer to him and then consume under the appearance of wine. In the Eucharist, the fruit that we give with Christ, the fruit of the vine and the branches, reaches its climax. If we live this Eucharist, if we keep this communion with the Lord, if we live this loving union, then, Jesus promises, his joy will be in us and our joy will be brought to perfection and we will bear fruit that will last unto eternal life.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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