Without Me....

The Gospel for this Fifth Sunday of Easter is the familiar, beloved, and challenging simile of the vine and the branches.  Jesus uses this common image to stress the need to remain united with him in order to bear fruit.  He is the root which provides the living juices that flow to the branches and enable them to remain green, to thrive, to blossom and eventually bring forth that for which they were created.   The branch which does not remain in a healthy connection with the vine, will wither, turn hard, be fruitless, and be cut away to enable the living branches to produce their fruit.
Jesus is the vine, we, the branches. He clearly states that "without me you can do nothing." (Jn 15:5).  In our very secular society, this line is blatantly ignored, even forgotten.  Agnosticism and atheism and indifference are clearly on the rise.  "No need for God, if there is a God; I can do it on my own," seems to be an alarmingly general attitude.  As alarming is the trend that says, "It's between me and Jesus; I don't need the Church."  Translated, the Church does not reflect Jesus, is disconnected from him; doesn't present or reflect him, but only a series of rules and obligations, rote and lifeless rituals. I am the Church...if people are not seeing Jesus in the Church, is it because they are not seeing him in me?  How firmly am I connected to the Vine?  Does my life sap come from Jesus or am I simply a robot Christian?  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whosever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing." (Jn 15: 5)
Bro. Rene