Vth SUNDAY IN EASTER SEASON. Acts 9: 26-31; 1 John 3: 18-24;Gospel: John 15: 1-8 In last Sunday's gospel reading Jesus was the good shepherd and we the sheep. Today's image expresses an even closer relationship: a vine and its branches. This is so close a relationship that you could say it is beyond relationship; it expresses identification. "I am the vine…you the branches." But a vine is all branches! It is not like a tree or a big shrub where you have a substantial trunk and a profusion of branches. The vine is just branches. He has identified himself with us. Jesus lives in us and we live in Jesus. This is also the teaching of St Paul. Christ, he said, is the head and we are the body. "We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another" (Rom:12:4); "Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ"(1Cor:12:12). A favorite word in John's gospel and letters is 'abide' (or 'remain'): abiding in God, abiding in Christ, abiding in his word. To abide is not to be a visitor, it is even more than being a friend, it is to be at home. It seems that no image can go far enough in expressing our union with Christ and God. Meister Eckhart said, "If anyone puts water in a barrel, the barrel would surround the water, but the water would not be in the barrel [i.e., it would not occupy the same space as the wood of the barrel], nor would the barrel be in the water: but the soul is wholly one with God….In spiritual things there is no separating of one from another." Just as the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, so a Christian is in the trinity. C.S. Lewis wrote, "God has designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." Take a fish and place him on a beach. Watch his gills gasp and scales dry. Is he happy? No! How do you make him happy? Do you cover him with a mountain of cash? Do you get him a beach chair and sunglasses? Do you bring him a Play fish magazine and a martini? Of course not! So, how do you make him happy? You put him back in his element. That’s what you do. You put him back in the water. He will never be happy on the beach because he was not made for the beach. Indeed so, and the same is true for you and me. We will never be happy living apart from the One who made us and saved us. Just like a fish was made to live in water… we were made to live in close fellowship with our Lord… and nothing can take the place of that.” We have been grafted into the true vine of Jesus and are called to bear fruit by being in communion with him. A little five-year-old boy who fell out of bed. His cry awakened the entire household. After his mother had safely tucked him back under the covers, she said, "Why did you fall out of bed?" Between tears and sobs, he said, "Well, I guess I went to sleep too close to where I got in." Far too many Christians make the same mistake. They fall out of the bed of life and go to heaven; yet they slept too close to where they got in. They never learned the difference between union and communion. When you trust Christ, you become a branch in His vine. That is union. But Jesus goes on to say in v.5, "He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit." Now that is communion. Union is the basis of communion. When a branch does not abide in the vine it will dry of. To abide in Christ is a twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year intimate fellowship with Him, so that you become a fruit-bearing branch. We need to be aware that vines may come in many shapes and colors each soliciting our primary allegiance. Materialism, pleasure and power are among the most popular vines of our times. Once we identify ourselves with a false vine, it immediately conditions and determines how we see ourselves and what we do with our lives. So we need to make sure we are connected with the true vine, not just any kind of non-nourishing vine. By baptism we became a branch of the Vine-Jesus. But to remain in him and to draw sap or life blood form him we need to be with him in communion of prayer and nourishing ourselves with the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. That is why Jesus said if you do not eat my body and drink my blood you cannot have life in you. Do I realize fully that apart from Jesus I can do nothing ? Do I try to produce fruits away from him ?As we continue with this nourishing sacrament let us examine :Am I a branch belonging to the vine that is Christ. Do I give glory to the Father by bearing much fruit ?