Reflections on the Sunday Readings for 5/10/09 by Ellie

You can find the full scripture readings at http://usccb.org/nab/readings/051009.shtml

Our Canandaigua community, our high school community and the St. Mary’s community have experienced a painful loss this week in the death of Tom Kane, the Academy student and a parishioner. We are doing the painful soul searching that occurs when someone we love takes his/her life. The second reading begins:

Children, let us love not in word or speech
But in deed and truth….
His commandment is this: we should believe in
The name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
And love one another just as he commanded us.
John 3:18-24

Let us examine this message not with regret nor to ask if we could have done something for this young man. Let us examine today’s readings to affirm more deeply our call to believe in Jesus and to love one another just as he commanded us. Jesus showed in His life what kinds of acts of love He means: to be with those who mourn, to bring compassion to the sick, and to comfort the troubled, to feed the hungry, and even, to bury the dead. We find ourselves this week deeply aware of this call to put Jesus’ teachings into action. This is one of the many blessings of this week.

The gospel reading has a related message for us. Our outpouring of caring shown this week by so many for the family and for our young people is not to be an only-in-emergencies-response.

"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 every one 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…
I am the vine, you are the branches.

John 15

This is not a role for just for the hard days, the periods of loss, or for tragic events. This is a commitment for life. We are the branches, we parents, teachers, public safety officers, friends, neighbors, parishioners, clergy are invited by the ‘Vine Grower’, shaped and pruned by the Grower to bear more fruit. And that commitment, as the former reading specified, is not just in word or speech alone that are we to be the branches, but by our deeds and how we live our truth. I might add that a week like this is perhaps the path of ‘our pruning’ where we are readied to bear more fruit.

Take good care of yourself as we emerge from these days, Be present to your teens and children, to every one in your life. In your prayers, remember not only the many who were so affected by this week’s events and for those among us whose pain and burdens are unknown to us, but also for those who have no one to pray for them. These are all lessons we've learned from our mother. So as we celebrate Mother's Day, lets remember that we’re all in this together! We are the branches.


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