PERHAPS THERE ARE SOME OF US who have never seen a vine, that is, seen grapes actually growing on the tree (although we may be well versed in our wines!). But what Jesus says about the vine - a plant very common in Palestine - can be said about any fruit-bearing tree that we are familiar with and the message is clear.

In an easily-understood image, he is explaining to us what our relationship with him can be like and indeed should be like. He compares himself to a tree, and actually to the trunk of the tree. The cultivator of the tree, the one who gives it life, is the Father God. The followers of Jesus are the branches.

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Fruit-bearing branches

And it is the branches which bear the fruit. If a branch does not bear fruit, it is simply cut off from the main stem. It is no good; it is just draining life from the trunk without giving anything in return.

It is very easy for us to be that kind of Christian. We can just come to church Sunday after Sunday in search of spiritual "handouts" or just to "fulfil our Sunday obligation" but give little or nothing back to the community. Each Sunday, we can come in and go out without making any impression, without being really part of what is going on.

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Need for pruning

But even the branches, which do bear fruit, are pruned, have parts cut off, so that they will bear even more. Those who cultivate fruit trees or roses are familiar with this process and know how important it is.

What does this pruning consist of? Jesus explains: "You are pruned already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide, stay in me, as I abide and stay in you." We are pruned, then, by our total identification with everything that Jesus stands for and by cutting out of our lives everything that is contrary to the spirit of Jesus.

This involves a certain kind of asceticism, a certain denial or controlling of our natural appetites. This becomes easy as we are more and more overtaken by the vision of life that Jesus offers to us. We set aside those non-Christlike things gladly and willingly. It becomes our deepest happiness and even our pleasure to be always in Christ.

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Not just talk

The Second Reading today expresses this in another way: "Our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active; only by this can we be certain that we are children of the truth and be able to quieten our conscience in his presence."

We can see this graphically illustrated in today's First Reading. Saul has just had his great conversion experience at Damascus. He has been transformed from a zealous Pharisee persecuting the followers of Christ as heretics to an ardent disciple of the same Christ.

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Lack of trust

But, not very surprisingly, when he arrives in Jerusalem no one trusts him. They think his conversion is just a trick to get inside the Christian community. Barnabas then testifies on behalf of Saul, telling how boldly he had preached Christ in Damascus after his conversion. Saul proves the point by "preaching fearlessly in the name of the Lord" in Jerusalem itself.

As a result he develops new enemies, the Hellenists, his fellow Greek-speaking Jews, who were shocked by what they regarded as his treachery to his Jewish tradition. They had no doubts about the genuineness of his conversion. Saul now becomes a victim of the same treatment he had formerly been meting out to the Christians.

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Taking cover

So his new-found brothers in Christ whisk him off to Caesarea, a Palestinian town on the Mediterranean coast lying to the north-west of Jerusalem and from there to his home city of Tarsus, on the south coast of modern Turkey.

There was no question that his conversion was not merely a matter of words. He was clearly revealing the fruit of his new-found life in Christ.

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'Without me, you can do nothing'

It is clear from what Jesus says that only those branches which are connected to the trunk can bear fruit. "Cut off from me you can do nothing." Without fruit we are dead branches but, on the other hand, the fruit is not just of our own making.

It is the sign that Christ is working in us and through us. The most outstanding fruit of all is, of course, the love we reveal in our relationships with God and with people. "By this will all know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another."

Separated from Christ - always the result of our own choice - we are like a branch that has fallen from the tree. We wither. Such "branches are collected and thrown on the fire, and they are burnt". Such separation is not physical. It is a separation of identity. It comes from rejecting or refusing to accept the Way of Jesus as our way of life. It is a rejection of life and the choice of alternatives which can only lead to decay and death.

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The great promise

Finally, there is the great promise. "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask what you will and you shall get it." This is not to be interpreted as some kind of blank cheque, such as asking to win the first prize in a lottery or to have one's enemy wiped out or to be cured of a terminal sickness.

The promise is prefaced by an important and essential condition: we need to be IN Christ and to have our lives totally guided by his "words", that is, his teaching, his vision of life. That is further confirmed by today's Second Reading: "We need not be afraid in God's presence, and whatever we ask him, we shall receive, because we keep his commandments and live the kind of life he wants."

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Jesus' commandments

And what are those commandments? They are basically two: "That we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ" and "That we love one another as he told us to". Any such person then is only going to ask for things which would draw one closer to Christ and to a more faithful implementation of his spirit. And such a prayer will certainly be answered.

And the reason is clear from the last sentence of today's Gospel: "It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit, and then you will be my disciples." Elsewhere Jesus had said that one knows the inner quality of a tree by its fruit. The same is true of each one of us. And, as it was put by Irenaeus, one of the great Fathers of the Church: The glory of God is the fully alive person (Gloria Deo homo vivens).

Let our prayer today to be such persons: giving glory to God and leading others to have that life too.