Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:26-31; Ps 22; 1 John 3:19-24: John 15:1-8
The image of the vine and the branches provides multiple references to the organic growth and intimate union with Jesus that is the vitality of the church. It conveys well St. Paul’s central idea of the church as the body of Christ, a living communion of the baptized with one another and with the crucified and risen Christ in the world. The metaphor covers many aspects of the Christian life as something cultivated, pruned to maximize productivity, open to ecumenical grafting and, in the end, directed to joy, the new wine of love in the vineyard of the Lord.