Daily Gospel Reflection
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May 5, 2021
Jesus said to his 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 everyone 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.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me
will be thrown out like a branch and wither;
people will gather them and throw them into a fire
and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
I once visited a winery and I noticed vineyard workers cutting off large chunks of beautiful green, leafy vines and tossing them on the ground. Other workers followed behind and gathered up the plant matter to discard. It was almost painful to see the lush green vines cut and dropped. I know that this is an important step in producing good wine, I had just never seen it in person.
There are two things that I take away from this gospel passage. First, pruning is necessary– and unavoidable. Second, being connected to the true vine makes us all stronger, together.
Jesus says that the vines that do not bear fruit will be pruned away. This makes sense, of course. But then he goes on to say that even the vines that do bear fruit will be pruned, as well. This causes them to bear more and better fruit. This made me think of the vineyard workers I mentioned who were pruning in the vines. Grape vines that are stressed just the right amount, by pruning and/or arid conditions, produce grapes that are highly concentrated with flavor. Pruning is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. A necessary thing. It is stressful to be stripped of the things that separate us from the Lord, but we must trust that God knows exactly how to prune the unnecessary or harmful shoots, tendrils, and leaves of our lives to help us bear fruit for the Gospel.
I imagined Jesus as the one doing the pruning but, when I read the passage more closely, I realized that the Father is the vine grower. Jesus is the vine. As we are pruned by the Father, we are always connected to the Son and, through him, to one another. As we are all intertwined and grafted together in our complex and messy lives, we realize that we are like vines growing together and connected by the one true vine. If we allow ourselves to be pruned, our roots will grow deeper and stronger because we are connected to the love of Christ.
Prayer
What a comfort for us to realize that we are not alone, for this day we are as connected to you as a branch is to the vine. We flourish because of you, for our vitality comes from you. Even as you prune us and things do not proceed as expected, we are comforted knowing that we will blossom in new ways. Thank you, God, for nurturing us each waking moment of our day. Let us never be parted from you. Amen.
Saint of the Day
On October 14, 2018, Pope Francis canonized seven new saints of the Church. One of them was the Italian teenager, Nunzio Sulprizio, who lived an uneventful and painful life and died less than a month after his nineteenth birthday. Nunzio's life is a testament to the simple witness of holiness, and his canonization celebrates this quiet and earnest witness.
Nunzio was born in Eastern Italy on April 13, 1817. His father died when he was only three years old, and his mother died three years later, leaving Nunzio an orphan by age six.
Because his stepfather had great contempt for him, Nunzio went to live with his maternal grandparents, who raised him to be a staunch Catholic and began to attend Mass with him regularly. From his beloved grandparents, Nunzio developed a devotion to the sacraments and nourished his spiritual life. Unfortunately for Nunzio, yet another one of his caregivers died: his grandmother passed away just before Nunzio's ninth birthday. After his grandmother's death, Nunzio was passed onto yet another relation—he was sent to live with his uncle, his mother's brother, who trained him as a blacksmith.
Whether through cruelty or misguided parental instinct, Nunzio's uncle believed the sweet-tempered young boy needed to develop discipline and a tougher skin. As punishments for perceived slights or laziness, he often beat Nunzio and deprived him of food. Nunzio functioned as a live-in errand boy for his uncle. On one such errand, when he was thirteen, he developed an infection in his leg. Nunzio was hospitalized for gangrene in his leg and spent his summer in the hospital. Despite his constant pain, he offered up his suffering silently and patiently.
In the hospital, he met his uncle's brother, Francesco Sulprizio, who introduced him to one of his colleagues in the Italian army, a colonel who took Nunzio under his wing, providing for his medical care and offering Nunzio the parental comfort and guidance he had lacked for so long.
In 1835, Nunzio's leg was amputated, in an attempt to stall the spread of his infection. Despite the amputation, his health deteriorated slowly but surely. In May of 1836, Nunzio peacefully died in the hospital, after receiving the sacraments for one last time.
Nunzio's journey to sainthood began quickly after his death but proceeded very slowly. Pope Pius IX declared him a Servant of God in 1859. Pope Leo XIII, a pope deeply concerned about workers and the Church at the turn of the twentieth century, proposed Nunzio as a patron for workers and declared him a Venerable in 1891. In the midst of Vatican II, Nunzio's cause for beatification was approved by Pope John XXIII before his death, and Nunzio was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1963. Finally, Nunzio was canonized on the 14th of October, 2018, as the bishops gathered in Rome for the 2018 Synod on Youth. How fitting that Nunzio, an unremarkable young teenager, was lifted up before youth from all over the world as a model of holiness, assuring them that, in the eyes of the God who keeps loving count of every sparrow, their lives, too, do matter.
St. Nunzio Sulprizio, patient and humble witness to ordinary holiness—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Nunzio Sulprizio is in the public domain. Last accessed February 21, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
