I AM THE TRUE VINE

"I am the true vine, and My Father is the Vine-dresser. Every branch in Me that bears no fruit He will take away; and every branch that bears fruit He will cleanse, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the Word I have spoken to you. Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remain on the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I AM THE VINE AND YOU ARE THE BRANCHES. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; FOR WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING." John 15:1-5
Namun Israel gagal menghasilkan buah, demikian juga gereja (paroki), meski Gereja tidak akan gagal pada akhirnya. Sabda sering seakan dihindari dan tidak dilakukan melainkan kegiatan "pelayanan" sebagai kompensasi , alih alih digali dan diajarkan sering dihindari sehingga meski banyak paroki mempunyai Seksi Kitab Suci namun kegiatan setahun tiga kali cukup sudah, APP, bulan kitab suci September dan di masa advent. Para pastor lebih senang menyibukan diri setiap hari dalam segala kegiatan, namun anehnya tidak ada yang secara khusus mau mengajar Sabda di paroki. Barangkali gambaranku salah, namun ini yang terjadi puluhan tahun di parokiku. Tidak pernah pastor paroki mengajar KS diluar memberikan homili pada perayaan ekaristi. Gereja mengajarkan bahwa ekaristi adalah misteri penyelamatan manusia dan sumber segala kegiatan, namun tanpa bersumber Firman, Sabda yang adalah Allah sendiri sebagaimana Yoh1 :1 "...........Firman itu bersama Allah dan Firman itu adalah Allah". I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. Bacaan injil Yohanes 15, pokok anggur yang benar Yesus mengajar lsendiri dengan langsung bahwa kita adalah ranting yang harus berbuah. Untuk dapat berbuah, "tinggallah didalam Aku dan Aku didalam kamu. Sama seperti ranting tidak dapat berbuah dari dirinya sendiri, kalau ia tidak tinggal pada pokok anggur". Ranting anggur hanya berguna kalau berbuah, karena sifatnya yang regas, tidak lurus dan bengkak bengkok. Ia tidak dapat dijadikan perabot atau alat apapun kecuali dibuang dan dibakar. Pengikut atau murid Kristus hanya dalam relasi dan kesatuan dengan Yesus menghasilkan buah kebenaran dan kebaikan. Jika kita berbuah banyak dalam hal inilah Bapa-Ku dipermuliakan dan dengan demikian kamu adalah murid-muridKu (Yoh 15 : 8).Jikalau kamu tinggal didalam Aku dan Firman-Ku tinggal didalam kamu.

JESUS REMAIN STAY WITH US

Gospel Commentary for 3rd Sunday of Easter

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, APRIL 4, 2008 (Zenit.org).- "Were not our hearts burning within
us while he spoke to us on the way and explained the Scriptures to
us?" This line from the Gospel passage about the disciples of Emmaus
brings us to reflect on the Scriptures.

There are two ways to approach the Bible. The first is that of
considering it an old book, full of religious wisdom, of moral values,
and of poetry too. From this point of view it is absolutely the most
important book for understanding our Western culture and the
Judeo-Christian religion. It is also the most printed and read book in
the world.

But there is another, much more demanding way to approach the Bible,
and it is that of believing that it contains the living word of God
for us, that it is an "inspired" book, that is, written, indeed, by
human authors, with all of their limitations, but with God's direct
intervention. A very human book and, at the same time, divine, that
speaks to men of all times and reveals to them the meaning of life and
death.

Above all it reveals to them God's love. If all the Bibles in the
world, St. Augustine said, on account of some disaster, would be
destroyed and there remained only one copy and, of this copy, all of
the pages were illegible save for one, and on this page only one line
were legible; if this line were that of the first letter of John that
reads "God is love," the whole Bible would be saved because it is
summed up in this statement. This explains how it is that so many
people approach the Bible without culture, without great education,
with simplicity, believing that it is the Holy Spirit that speaks in
it and find in it answers to their problems, light, encouragement, in
a word, life.

The two ways of approaching the Bible -- the way of erudition and the
way of faith -- do not exclude each other, on the contrary, they must
be united. It is necessary to study the Bible, the way in which it
should be interpreted (or to pay attention to the findings of those
study it in this way), so as not to fall into fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism consists in taking a verse from the Bible, just as it
sounds, and applying it to today's situations, without taking into
account the difference of culture, of time, and of the different
genres of the Bible.

It is believed, for example, that the universe is little more that
4,000 years old since this would seem to be what we can calculate from
the information that the Bible provides, while we know that the
universe is some billions of years old. The Bible was not written as a
textbook of natural science, but for salvation. God, in the Bible,
adapted himself to the way of speaking of the men of the time so that
they could understand; he did not write only for the men of the age of
technology.

On the other hand, to reduce the Bible to an object of study and
erudition, remaining neutral to its message, is to kill it. It would
be as if a man, receiving a letter from the woman he loves, were to
examine it with a dictionary, from the point of view of grammar and
syntax, and stops at these things, without grasping the love that is
in it.

Reading the Bible without faith is like trying to read a book at
night: nothing can be read, or at least one does not read what is
essential. Reading Scripture with faith means reading it in reference
to Christ, grasping what refers to him on every page, just as he did
with the disciples of Emmaus.

Jesus remains with us in two ways: in the Eucharist and in his word.
He is present in both: in the Eucharist under the form of food, in the
Word under the form of light and truth. The word has a great advantage
over the Eucharist. Only those who already believe and are in a state
of grace can receive communion; but everyone, believers and
nonbelievers, married people and divorced people, can approach the
word of God. Indeed, to become a believer, the most normal route is
that of listening to God's word.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS

The Gnostic Gospels:

Are they the real history of Jesus?
Are there secret writings about Jesus??
In 1945 a discovery was made in Upper Egypt, near the town of Nag Hammadi. Fifty-two copies of ancient writings, called the Gnostic gospels were found in 13 leather-bound papyrus codices (handwritten books). They were written in Coptic and belonged to a library in a monastery. A few Gnostic scholars have gone so far as to assert that these recently discovered writings are the authentic history of Jesus instead of the New Testament. But does their faith in these documents square with the historical evidence? Let’s take a deeper look to see if we can separate truth from fiction.

Secret "Knowers"
The Gnostic gospels are attributed to a group known as (big surprise here) the Gnostics. Their name comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “knowledge.” These people thought they had secret, special knowledge hidden from ordinary people.
As Christianity spread, the Gnostics mixed some doctrines and elements of Christian­ity into their beliefs, morphing Gnosticism into a counterfeit Christianity. Perhaps they did it to keep recruitment numbers up and make Jesus a poster child for their cause. However, for their system of thought to fit with Christianity, Jesus needed to be rein­vented, stripped of both his humanity and his absolute deity.
In The Oxford History of Christianity John McManners wrote of the Gnostics’ mixture of Christian and mythical beliefs.
Gnosticism was (and still is) a theoso­phy with many ingredients. Occult­ism and oriental mysticism became fused with astrology, magic. … They collected sayings of Jesus shaped to fit their own interpretation (as in the Gospel of Thomas), and offered their adherents an alternative or rival form of Christianity.1

Early Critics
A mild strain of Gnostic philosophy was already growing in the first century just decades after the death of Jesus. The apostles, in their teaching and writings, went to great lengths to condemn these beliefs as being opposed to the truth of Jesus, to whom they were eyewitnesses. Check out, for example, what the apostle John wrote near the end of the first century:
Who is the great liar? The one who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Such people are antichrists, for they have denied the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22, NIV).
Following the apostles’ teaching, the early church leaders unanimously condemned the Gnostics as a cult. Church father Irenaeus, writing 140 years before the Council of Nicaea, confirmed that the Gnostics were condemned by the church as heretics. He also rejected their “gospels.” But, referring to the four New Testament Gospels, he said, “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.” 2
Christian theologian Origen wrote this in the early third century, more than a hun­dred years before Nicaea:
I know a certain gospel which is called “The Gospel according to Thomas” and a “Gospel according to Matthias,” and many others have we read—lest we should in any way be consid­ered ignorant because of those who imagine they possess some knowledge if they are acquainted with these.
Nevertheless, among all these we have approved solely what the church has recognized, which is that only four gospels should be accepted.3

Mystery Authors
When it comes to the Gnostic gospels, just about every book carries the name of a New Testament character: the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, and so on. But were they even written by their purported authors? Let’s take a look.
The Gnostic gospels are dated about 110 to 300 years after Christ, and no cred­ible scholar believes any of them could have been written by their namesakes. In James M. Robinson’s comprehensive The Nag Hammadi Library, we learn that the Gnostic gospels were written by “largely unrelated and anonymous authors.”4
New Testament scholar Norman Geisler writes, “The Gnostic writings were not written by the apostles, but by men in the second century (and later) pretending to use apostolic authority to advance their own teachings. Today we call this fraud and forgery.”5

Endnotes
1 John McManners, ed., The Oxford History of Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 28.
2 Darrell L. Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code (Nashville: Nelson, 2004), 114.
3 Bock, 119-120.
4 Ibid.,13.
5 Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks, When Skeptics Ask (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 156.
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