Our Lady of Fatima 

*** 1st Reading ***

Acts 15:1-6

Some persons who had come from Judea to Antioch

were teaching the brothers in this way, “Unless you are circumcised according to the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Because of this there was trouble, and Paul and Barnabas had fierce arguments with them. For Paul told the people to remain as they were when they became believers. Finally those who had come from Jerusalem suggested that Paul and Barnabas and some others go up to Jerusalem to discuss the matter with the apostles and elders.

They were sent on their way by the Church. As they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria they reported how the non-Jews had turned to God, and there was great joy among all the brothers and sisters.

On their arrival in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the Church, the apostles and the elders, to whom they told all that God had done through them.  Some believers, however, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees, stood up and said that non-Jewish men must be cir­cum­­cised and instructed to keep the law of Moses. So the apostles and elders met together to consider this matter.

 

Ps 122:1-2, 3-4ab, 4cd-5

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

 

**** Gospel ****

John 15:1-8

 I am the true vine and my Father is the vine­grower.  If any of my branches doesn’t bear fruit, he breaks it off; and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, that it may bear even more fruit.

You are already made clean by the word I have spoken to you;  live in me as I live in you. The branch cannot bear fruit by itself but has to remain part of the vine; so neither can you if you don’t remain in me.

I am the vine and you are the branches. As long as you remain in me and I in you, you bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not remain in me is thrown away as they do with branches and they wither. Then they are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.

 If you remain in me and my words in you, you may ask whatever you want and it will be given to you. My Father is glorified when you bear much fruit: it is then that you become my disciples.

 

Gospel Reflection

In the first reading, we encounter the issue of how strictly new converts, especially gentiles, were to follow the Law of Moses. And as the passage tells us, “there was trouble” and “fierce arguments.”

The church is, and has always been, a community of men and women, of saints and sinners, all journeying towards the Father. When Jesus came to redeem us, he showed us the way back. But that didn’t mean that the path was straight, smooth, and rosy, nor did he mean that henceforth, the arguments, disagreements and, at times even fierce quarrels that characterize our relationships with one another, would cease.

Believers do not cease being men and women of flesh and blood when they choose to follow Jesus. Jesus does not do away with our humanity and the good as well as the bad attached to it, when he died for us. Rather, he showed us the way by which that humanity can be raised up, perfected, conformed to himself, who was its fullness.

But because we are fully human, so is the Church. And we see that in its stark reality in the account of the challenges faced by the early community of believers in the Acts of the Apostles.