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JMJ
The Readings for Wednesday in the 5th Week of Easter (B2)
St Athanasius, BDC
Omnem palmitem in me non ferentem fructum, tollet eum, et omnem qui fert fructum, purgabit eum, ut fructum plus afferat.
Every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
The Clash paraphrased this verse very well in 1982, singing: If I go there will be trouble and if I stay it will be double. For those of an earlier generation (or different genre), Lynn Anderson was a bit more poetic with I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden. Both artists reminding us that Our Lord taught: love is not about warm fuzzies, but rather about a lot of work. Jesus expects that our relationship with him will be rocky – for us. He’s already done the hard work though. He could not love us any better: he loves you just the way you are.
Still, there is something required of us. He likes our praise and worship, but he wants more than words. One of the Desert Fathers said, if you will it you can become wholly fire. This is what Jesus wants. If you’re on fire, he says. Show me. But we are, perhaps rightly, scared of fire. We know it’s going to burn. We know it’s going to not leave us unharmed, unchanged, unscathed. Jesus knows that life is not tried, it is merely survived if you’re standing outside the fire. It may look good to live fast, avoiding attachments, but it is the attachments, the pain, the struggle that grind down our edges, that make us into smooth, reflective surfaces to return his light.
We want, pardon the analogy, vegan love: warm feelings, romance with no meat, no death, no struggle. Jesus bled and died for this love. And wants us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. And to be honest, he expects us to die for it too. So like he says, it’s gonna be tough to stick around here, but it’s tougher still for the sticks that get cut off. When it comes to love, it’s not moonlight, it’s fire, or it’s fire.
Thing is, we’re prone to go the easy way. Jesus knows that when we can’t be with the one we love, we will love the one we’re with; even though that just gets really old after a while. When we do it my way find ourselves craving more and more but getting less and less. We suffer from this silly idea that love will fill me up, complete me, make me all the me I’m supposed to be. Real love does that, yes, but only by destroying all of you, making you into the full human being God made you to be. You’ll be you, alright, but you’ll be totally changed, totally different. Because you’ll be Christ.
Love hurts. Yes. So why not pick the love that lasts forever?
Doxos 