1st Reading – Acts 9:26-31
Our first reading today has Saul (Paul) as the hero. The time is about A.D. 36-39. He has been struck down on the road to Damascus and blinded, led into Damascus and for three days was without sight, food and drink. Healed by Ananias and baptized (the only baptism of any apostle in Holy Scripture), then he preaches about Jesus in the synagogues in the area for many days (three years according to Galatians 1:17-18) until the Jews plotted to kill him causing him to flee to Jerusalem.
2nd Reading – 1 John 3:18-24
Last week we heard about the marvelous gift of divine filiation. Because of this gift we can call ourselves “children of God.” Today we hear about living out this divine filiation to the fullest – by expressing our brotherly love in word and deed.
Gospel – John 15:1-8
Today we hear Jesus say that He is the true vine and we are the branches. The comparison of the chosen people with a vine was used in the Old Testament: Psalm 80 speaks of the uprooting of the vine in Egypt and its replanting in another land; and in Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7) God complains that despite the care and love he has lavished on it, His vineyard has yielded only wild grapes. Here, the comparison has a different, more personal meaning: Christ explains that He Himself is the true vine, because the old vine, the original chosen people, has been succeeded by the new vine, the Church, whose head is Christ. To be fruitful one must be joined to the new, true vine, Christ: it is no longer a matter of simply belonging to a community but of living the life of Christ, the life of grace, which the nourishment that passes life on to the believer and enables him to yield
fruits of eternal life.
