On this fifth Sunday of Easter, we are presented with this beautiful image of the vine and the branches, from the 15^th chapter of St. John’s Gospel.  Reading it over several times, I was struck especially by the word “abide”, which appears eight times in these eight verses, and the phrase “bear fruit”, which recurs four times.  What might these phrases/thoughts mean to us, here and now?  Where and how are we being called to “abide”, to connect, to find our home?  And what is the fruit that we are being called to bear – as individuals, as parish communities, as global community?

One of the challenges we have been facing is that many of those activities that foster the strengthening of community bonds in our gatherings are precisely those things we have had to forego.  Greeting people at the door with a warm handshake and a smile; chatting with our fellow parishioners; standing and singing the Lord’s praises together in full voice; gathering the children around the altar for the Lord’s prayer; exchanging the sign of peace with our neighbours; coming to the altar to receive the fullness of the Lord’s presence in the Body and Blood of Christ; going downstairs for coffee and fellowship or standing outside with fellow parishioners to catch up on the news – all these things which make up good liturgy and the building up of the community are what we have had to let go of.  It has not been easy.

That is why we need each other.  When we connect with others, when we have someone with whom we share the journey of life, including the hard parts, we know that we are not alone.  When we see what God is doing in someone else’s life, it becomes a little easier to recognize the signs of what he is doing in my life.  When I hear someone else share their struggles, their experience of feeling “pruned” by the Lord, I begin to see that my struggles are not for nothing, that they have something to teach me, that God is using them to “prune me”: not to make me bear less fruit, but more and better fruit.  When I am feeling isolated or distant from God, being with other believers helps to renew my own faith, my own desire to stay connected or to re-connect if I have drifted away.  We need each other, and we need God.  Only connect!