Did you ever pick a grape? I remember a few years ago I visited a vineyard, and as I walked down the aisles of heavy wooded vines, there hung from each of them a myriad of big heavy clusters of rich red grapes, seemingly bursting with juice and with flavor. And I couldn’t resist picking one of the fattest of the grapes, popping it into my mouth and relishing its fresh sweet flavor.
It was a great cluster of grapes. But then, as I walked along, I notice another cluster, very different from the first. You see the famous thunderstorms in this part of Tuscany must have hit a few days before, and the winds must have hit this cluster of grapes in just the right way, so they it blew to the side and its step ripped, ever so slightly from the vine…so that now, instead of a big cluster of juicy red grapes, it held a repulsive collection of wizened red grape-corpses, dangling grostesquely from its branches.
Unless the branch is securely joined to the vine, it dries up, wizens and dies.
And so it is with us and Christ. He is the vine, the source of life. He tells us that repeatedly: He is the way, the truth and life. And when we are joined to him, we thrive, eternally filled with life. But when we are separated from him, we wizen and die.
The Eucharist joins us to Christ the true vine when we drink his Precious Blood and eat the Body which he offered for us in the perfect sacrifice of the Cross. Indeed, as I commemorate the six month anniversary of the death of my mother, my greatest consolation is that she who ate his Body and drank his Blood will never really die, but grafted onto the true vine, will live with him forever.
Prayer joins us to him, each time we get down on our knees, in adoration and intercession, placing our lives in his hands and joining our broken hearts to his Sacred Heart.
Acts of love join us to him as we meet him in all who are hungry or lost or forgotten, and in loving them love him, knowing that whatever we do to the least of our brothers we do unto him.
Thus, without the Eucharist, without prayer and without charity, we wizen and die and become empty, shriveled up corpses, fallen from the vine which is our life and our only hope.
It’s like that wonderful poem by Freda Hanbury about the little Branch which is you and me.
T’is only a little Branch,
A thing so fragile and weak,
But that little Branch hath a message true
To give, could it only speak.
"I'm only a little Branch,
I live by a life not mine,
For the sap that flows through my tendrils small
Is the life-blood of the Vine.
"No power indeed have I
The fruit of myself to bear,
But since I'm part of the living Vine,
Its fruitfulness I share.
…
"I fear not the days to come,
I dwell not upon the past,
As moment by moment I draw a life,
Which for evermore shall last.
"I bask in the sun's bright beams,
Which with sweetness fills my fruit,
Yet I own not the clusters hanging there,
For they all come from the root."
A life which is not my own,
But another's life in me:
This, this is the message the Branch would speak,
A message to thee and me.
Oh, struggle not to "abide,"
Nor labor to "bring forth fruit,"
But let Jesus unite thee to Himself,
As the Vine Branch to the root.
So simple, so deep, so strong
That union with Him shall be:
His life shall forever replace thine own,
And His love shall flow through thee.
