In this Sunday’s Gospel, I focus on Jesus’ words: “I am the true vine.”

Quite simply, a vine is an organic structure nurtured by the soil, sun and rain. It is fed by the sap that flows through the stem and the branches. It grows and produces fruit.

Jesus again draws upon a metaphor telling us that He is the vine, drawing life from the Father and communicating that life to all who remain united with Him. There is a mysterious, living connection between us and Jesus. There is also a mysterious, living connection uniting us with one another (the branches) through our union with Christ, the vine.

What I believe Jesus is telling us via metaphor and direct language, (“…without me you can do nothing”) all of our lives would go nowhere. “Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither.”

When we mature and leave home, our love and our connection with our parents remain, but we are really on our own. Not so with Jesus. We need our Lord as much when we are sixty or seventy as when we are six or seven. We never outgrow our need for Him. We need Him all the time. If we reflect deeply, we know that there is a power greater than ourselves that we depend upon and that we continually need to sustain us. We are connected with that power through Jesus, the True Vine.