“Rooted in Christ” by Colleen O’Sullivan

“Rooted in Christ” by Colleen O’Sullivan

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved." (Acts 13:2)

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples." (John 15:5, 7-8)

Piety

Lord, may I always remain firmly rooted in you.

Study

The wet winter and spring have wreaked havoc in my yard! Trees have new baby branches growing in places I would never want them. The mulch put down to prevent weeds must have been full of seeds because the garden beds now look like the beginnings of a maple tree nursery. On top of that, I’ve lived here for three years without having any ivy on my trees, but, you guessed it, many of my trees are now sporting festive, green trunks.

Fortunately, ivy on trees is fairly easy to take care of. Just go around the bottoms of the trunks and clip each vine. The ivy branches no longer have sustenance and will wither over time, or you can simply pull them down as you go. As I was taking care of this task, I reflected on today’s Gospel reading.  We Christians are the branches rooted in Jesus Christ, the Vine. The ease of removing ivy from my trees could serve as a cautionary note about our faith. We, believers, are utterly dependent upon Jesus for our existence as well as our ability to thrive. Unless we remain firmly rooted in the Lord, Jesus says we will surely wither and die spiritually.

I was purposely doing a quick “hatchet” job on my ivy, but it struck me as I was working that depriving ourselves of our life-giving source, Jesus, often leads to a slower, more insidious death process. Maybe it starts with becoming less disciplined in our prayer lives. Fewer talks with Jesus can turn into no conversation at all. Maybe we cease attending Mass every week. Many of us don’t read the Scriptures at home and, once we stop going to church on a regular basis, we no longer hear the Word of God. We also miss out on the sacraments. After a while, we find ourselves no longer connected to the Vine in any way. We may not physically die, but spiritually we will have withered and ceased to exist.

While it is essential to our life in Christ to be rooted in him, in our first reading the leaders of the young Church grappled with the difference between what is indispensable to our faith no matter when or where we live and what traditions aren’t central to our being believers. The Church ultimately decided that it wasn’t necessary to be circumcised in order to be a follower of Christ. Even today, though, we sometimes hold on to traditions as though they are the essence of being a Christian when they’re not.

Action

Today’s readings remind us that we are Christians only to the extent that we are rooted in Christ, the life-giving Vine, and caution us not to elevate traditions to an importance they don’t deserve. Both Scripture passages provide food for thought.

How rooted are we in Christ? Do we pray every day?  How well acquainted are we with the Word of God? Do we join with our brothers and sisters in communal worship at Mass? Do we participate in the sacraments? If our honest answers aren’t resoundingly positive, maybe go back and read today’s Gospel again and think about how we could become more deeply rooted in the Vine.

How often do we lose sight of the forest for the trees? Whether or not a man had to be circumcised to be a follower of Christ was a huge issue in the early Church. The Good News had quickly spread to many other peoples beyond Israel, and early church leaders took different approaches to address that. Today it sounds ridiculous that a person would need to go through Jewish rituals in order to become a disciple of Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is what defines a true believer. In the same way, perhaps some of the things near and dear to our hearts aren’t as important as we think they are.  In some congregations, some women still choose to cover their heads at Mass. When it comes to Communion, some people prefer to receive in the hand and others on the tongue. We don’t all agree on the type of music used at Mass. From time to time, we need to remind ourselves that all this is of secondary importance to being rooted in Christ.