Action, Not Words

“Let Us Love Not In Word or Speech but In Deed and Truth”
(From First Letter of John 3:18-24)
A Reflection from the readings for May 14, 2006
These words taken from the opening of John’s letter continue with “Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts before Him in whatever our hearts condemn, for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything”
John goes on to tell us that by remaining faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ by keeping His commandments and acting in a way that is pleasing to Him by living as He instructed we remain in Him.
John goes on to say that “if we believe in the name of His son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as Christ commanded us” we remain in God and God remains in us. John goes on to infer that we will know that God remains in us from the spirit He gives us.
In the Gospel for the day, Jesus tells the disciples “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.”
We are the branches of Jesus the vine, we in and of ourselves can do nothing unless we are connected to the vine. We can only stay connected to the vine when we live our lives as Jesus instructed us.
No vine bears fruit without labor, and labor takes time and effort. If we just stand over the vine and say, “Grow vine and bear fruit” it will achieve nothing. In order to have the vine bear fruit we need to fertilize it, we do that by our actions not our words. You also have to prune off the saplings so that the energy goes into the fruit bearing branches. This is accomplished by rejecting the proclamations that do not conform to the teachings of Christ. We need to till the soil around the roots so that the life giving nutrients get to the root to promote healthy growth. That means we need to go out into the field and stir up things by denouncing errors and condemnations that are contrary to Christ’s teachings.
From the beginning, Satan has used every guise that he has to put an end to the message God sent Christ to proclaim because it would put an end to him and confine him to the netherworld.
He has successfully worked to break the church Christ established through His disciples into many factions, each working against the other.
Now is the time to put an end to this disunity and find the means to come together into one faith community, one flock headed by the Good Shepherd sent by Almighty God.
On this Mother’s day, the Fifth Sunday of the Easter season, I implore every one who professes to love our Lord and Savior, as a gift to His beloved mother Mary, to explore ways that we can work together to bring about the reunification of His One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. ““Let Us Love Not In Word or Speech but In Deed and Truth” AMEN
Rev. Robert Francis Johnnene OFAMission Sts. Sergius and Bacchuswww.missionstsergius.orghttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mission_Sts_Sergius_and_Bacchushttp://spaces.msn.com/members/Mission-St-Sergiushttp://groups.msn.com/MissionSaintsSergiusandBacchus