I AM THE VINE, YOU ARE THE BRANCHES

I AM THE VINE, YOU ARE THE BRANCHES

A reading from the commentary of St. Cyril of Alexandria [380-444] on St. John’s Gospel 

Bk 10,2 

Because Christ wished to show His disciples how necessary it is to be rooted in love of Him, and how beneficial it is to cling to Him, He told them in figurative language that He was the vine, and that the branches of the vine were those who were united with Him, and, so to speak, inserted and grafted into Him so as to participate in His nature through receiving a share in the Holy Spirit; for we are made one with Christ the Saviour by His Holy Spirit. 

Those who approach the vine are attached to it by choice, but what attaches it to us is not part of our natures. For it is through our right choices that we have come to Him through faith, and received from Him the dignity of sons, so as to become His people. As Saint Paul said: ‘He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.’ 

Similarly, in another passage, in the words of the prophet, Christ is the base and foundation. For we are built on Him, and are called ‘living and spiritual stones, to be a holy priesthood’. We are God’s house in the Spirit, and we cannot be built on to Him in any other way than with Christ as our foundation. So too, by an analogous process of thought, He calls Himself the vine, which is, so to speak, the mother who feeds the branches that grow from it. 

For we have been reborn from Him and in Him, that is, in the Spirit, in order to bear the fruit of life; not the old life we used to live but the life that consists of newness of faith and of love for Him. We are preserved in being if we grow on to Him and cling fast to the holy commandment that has been handed down to us, and if are eager to keep the blessing of nobility, that is to say, if we never consent in any way to grieve the Holy Spirit, who has come to dwell in us and through whom, we believe, God has made His home in us. 

Saint John, with his power of vision, can show us in what way we are in Christ and He in us: ‘By this we know that we abide in Him and He is us, because He has given us His own Spirit.’ 

For just as the vine-stock supplies and distributes the virtue of its own inherent natural quality to the shoots, so too the only-begotten Word of God implants in His people a sort of affinity with His own nature and that of the Father. By the gift of the Spirit they are united with Him by faith and every kind of holiness. He nourishes them so that they become devout, and He moves them to knowledge of all virtue and of good works. 

Short Prayer: Lord Jesus, I believe in Your words, that no branch can bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains united with the vine: You! Help me so I can remain united with You. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Amen. 

Taken from THE DIVINE OFFICE II – LENT AND EASTERTIDE – The Office of Reading – The Second Reading, pages 587-588. 

A Christian Pilgrim