May 2000

Jesus' farewell discourse after the last Supper is very rich with teachings and exhortations which he gives, with the heart of a brother and father, to his own for all centuries.
While it is true that all his words are divine, this phrase is especially significant because in them the Master and Lord condenses his doctrine of life in a testament that will become the magna charta of Christian communities.
Let us enter then into the Word of Life for this month which is, in fact, part of Jesus' testament, with the desire to discover its profound and hidden meaning and to imbue our whole lives with it.
In reading this chapter from John's Gospel, the first thing that leaps before your eyes is the image of the vine and the branches, so familiar to a people who for centuries has planted vineyards and cultivated grapevines. And this people knows well that only the vine engrafted on the trunk can become green with leaves and rich with bunches of grapes. Whereas the vine that is cut off shrivels up and dies. There couldn't have been a stronger image for expressing the nature of our bond with Christ.
But there is another word that resounds with insistence on this page of the Gospel: “remain”, in the sense of being firmly tied and intimately inserted in him, as the condition for receiving the vital lymph which enables us to live of his very own life. “Remain in me, as I remain in you.” “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.” “Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out.” (Jn. 15:4ff). Therefore, the verb “remain” must have an essential meaning and value for the life of a Christian.

«If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.»

“If”. This “if” indicates a condition which would be impossible for anyone to observe if God had not taken the initiative and reached out to humanity, or better still, if he had not come down to humanity to the point of making himself one with it. He was the first to engraft himself, so to speak, in our flesh through Baptism and to vivify it with his grace.
Then it is up to us to bring to fruition what Baptism has worked in our life and to discover the inexhaustible riches it has deposited there.
How? By living the Word, by making it fruitful, by giving it a fixed abode in our lives. To remain in him means making his words remain in us, not like stones at the bottom of a well, but like seeds in the soil, so that in time, they will bud forth and bear fruit. But to remain in him means above all – as Jesus himself explains in this passage from the Gospel – to remain in his Love (cf. Jn. 15:9). This is the vital lymph that rises from the roots, up through the trunk and to the most distant vine shoots. It is the love that binds us to Jesus, that makes us one with him, as members transplanted – we would say today – in his body; and love consists in living his commandments which are all summed up in that great and new commandment of mutual love.
And almost as a confirmation, to prove to us that we are engrafted onto him, he promises that our every prayer will be granted.

«If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.»

Jesus himself is asking, so he cannot but obtain what he asks for. And if we are one with him, he himself will be asking in us. Therefore, if we are about to pray, to ask something of God, let us first ask ourselves “if” we have lived the Word, if we have always remained in love. Let us ask ourselves if we are his living words, if we are a concrete sign of his love for each and every person we meet. We might even want to ask for graces, but without any intention of conforming our life to what God asks of us.
Would it be right then for him to grant what we ask for? Would our prayer not be different if it were to develop out of our union with Jesus, and if it were Jesus himself in us who presents the requests to his Father?
Let us ask all that we want, certainly, but first of all let us be concerned about living his will, his words, so that it is no longer we who live, but he who lives in us.

Chiara Lubich