St Charles Borromeo
  • HOME
    • Sunday Page
    • Give
  • About
    • Mass Times
    • Bulletin & Calendar
    • Lent Schedule
    • Holy Week
    • Contact
    • Staff
    • Ministries and Committees >
      • Pastoral Council
    • Finances
    • Liturgical Ministries Schedule
  • News
  • Faith
    • Baptism
    • First Communion
    • Confirmation >
      • Confirmation Retreat 2023
      • Confirmation Sponsor
      • Confirmation Name
    • Synod 2023 >
      • Respond
      • Responses
    • Reading the Bible Rebelliously
    • The Lasallian Way
    • Spiritual Growth Challenge >
      • Lent 2023
      • Gun Violence
      • Essential Elements >
        • Essential Elements - Results
      • Personal Journey in Faith
      • Christian Practices
      • Finding LIfe's Purpose
      • Racial Reconciliation
      • Care for Creation
    • GIFT >
      • GIFT Prayer
      • Past GIFT Programs
  • Word
    • Lenten Evening Prayer
    • Voice of the Community >
      • Reflections
    • Homily
    • Children's Liturgy of the Word
  • Justice
    • Care 4 Creation >
      • Understanding Natural Gas
    • MACG Summary Report
    • Racial Justice
    • Local Resources
    • Renter's Assistance
    • Food Insecurity
    • Utilities Assistance
    • Care For The Elderly
    • St. Vincent de Paul >
      • Who We Are
      • WHAT WE DO
      • GET INVOLVED
      • GIVE
      • GET HELP >
        • FOOD HELP
        • FINANCIAL HELP
      • NEWS

Homily

Fifth Sunday of Easter

5/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
May 2, 2021


​Today Jesus says: “I am the vine, you are the branches. 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.”
 
An author Isaac S. Villegas tells the story of the vines in his yard.  “The vines behind my house creep along a fence, then trespass into my neighbor’s yard to crawl onto the roof of a toolshed and jump into the tree canopy.  There’s a wildness to vines, which Jesus offers as a metaphor for his movement in the world.”

​Wildness is an apt metaphor for following Jesus.  Paul in the 1st reading was not accepted into the company of believers in Jerusalem.  After all he did persecute the followers of Jesus.  How were these followers to accept Paul?  So Barnabas stood up for Paul, told of his being knocked off his horse and a voice, Jesus, told him to preach that Jesus is the Christ.  After Barnabas’ witness Paul was finally accepted.  It was a wild ride for Paul and the other disciples.
 
Mary McGlone says, “By using the image of vine and branches, Jesus explains that we are an intimate, inextricable part of him and of one another.  The image lures us to explore the depths of our connection to the God of Life.”
 
We are asked today if we will be fruitful branches, remaining tied closely to Jesus the vine, or will we wither and die.  We must continually choose, each day, to be fruitful branches hooked intimately to the vine.
 
Today we have six First Communions.  These young people are choosing to follow Jesus, the vine, in their lives.  It is our part to help these children grow in their faith so they can live it well.  We pray that they will become fruitful branches of the vine, Jesus.
 
If we remain fruitful branches we will experience the wildness of Paul, Mary Magdalen, Peter, and all the early disciples, maybe not to the degree that Paul felt, but it will be there.  If we look over our own lives there are always these unexpected happenings and our lives change dramatically.  We make plans for our lives.  Someone comes along and we marry, have children, make friends, work in a job we like, enter religious life. 
 
Then it all changes, we lose our job, a pandemic hits and we wonder if we will be able to stay in our homes,  we have to flee violence in our home country and become refugees and immigrants, there is conflict in the family, we get sick, someone we never expected dies way too young.  All kinds of things happen in our lives for which we never planned.
 
Yet if we stay part of the vine we can experience these changes as helps to further intimacy and trust in Jesus.  Although some of these changes are filled with sorrow and grief, we are led, by the vine Jesus, to Resurrection and to joy.
 
So let us be wild as Jesus, the vine, is wild.  Let us love as Jesus, the vine, loves.  Let us open ourselves to newness and to new people and accept all the other branches in this community of faith, trust, and wildness.  Let us follow Jesus, this wild vine, into newness of life, love and joy.
 
 
Isaac S. Villegas, SOJOURNERS,   May 2021.  Page 48
 
Mary McGlone, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER,   April 16-29, 2021.  Page 19
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

St. Charles Church  |  5310 N.E. 42nd Avenue, Portland OR 97218  |  503-281-6461  | stchas@stcharlespdx.org


  • HOME
    • Sunday Page
    • Give
  • About
    • Mass Times
    • Bulletin & Calendar
    • Lent Schedule
    • Holy Week
    • Contact
    • Staff
    • Ministries and Committees >
      • Pastoral Council
    • Finances
    • Liturgical Ministries Schedule
  • News
  • Faith
    • Baptism
    • First Communion
    • Confirmation >
      • Confirmation Retreat 2023
      • Confirmation Sponsor
      • Confirmation Name
    • Synod 2023 >
      • Respond
      • Responses
    • Reading the Bible Rebelliously
    • The Lasallian Way
    • Spiritual Growth Challenge >
      • Lent 2023
      • Gun Violence
      • Essential Elements >
        • Essential Elements - Results
      • Personal Journey in Faith
      • Christian Practices
      • Finding LIfe's Purpose
      • Racial Reconciliation
      • Care for Creation
    • GIFT >
      • GIFT Prayer
      • Past GIFT Programs
  • Word
    • Lenten Evening Prayer
    • Voice of the Community >
      • Reflections
    • Homily
    • Children's Liturgy of the Word
  • Justice
    • Care 4 Creation >
      • Understanding Natural Gas
    • MACG Summary Report
    • Racial Justice
    • Local Resources
    • Renter's Assistance
    • Food Insecurity
    • Utilities Assistance
    • Care For The Elderly
    • St. Vincent de Paul >
      • Who We Are
      • WHAT WE DO
      • GET INVOLVED
      • GIVE
      • GET HELP >
        • FOOD HELP
        • FINANCIAL HELP
      • NEWS