Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 5, 2021

John 15:1-8

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.”

This section of St. John’s Gospel was used for the Mass this past Sunday.  As most of the reading involved the Lord speaking of himself as the Vine and his followers as his “branches”, a short line pops out that seems out of place, and which grabs our attention: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.”  The Lord tells us, even urges us, “Ask for whatever you want.”  He says that whatever we ask for will be granted to us on the condition that “you remain in me and my words remain in you.”  That is, if we remain members of the Vine — members of his Body — something given us in our baptism and which we maintain through correct faith in him and adherence to his commandments.  And yet, we all experience that our prayers fail, or seem to fail, in obtaining what we ask for, even when it is earnestly prayed for.  We all experience disappointment in prayer.  How does this square with the words the Lord Jesus speaks to us?

One answer is that God answers our prayers in his time and in his way.  Thus, we pray for the healing of a sick child, but the child dies.  Our prayer is answered in that child’s reception into heaven, a far greater outcome.  From our point of view, this is a failure of our prayer.  As a result of the child’s death, we suffer.  But from the saved child’s point of view, the prayer succeeded because now she experiences the eternal bliss of heaven, and can pray for those still on earth.  As members of the Lord’s Body, we ought to see this from the perspective of the Lord.  It is certainly difficult for us, especially in the case in which we are praying for an innocent sufferer.  But we cannot look on the events of this world as though we were not baptized, as so many of the people around us are not.  Trapped with their materialist sight, they cannot perceive any good at all in suffering and death. 

Another answer is that we ought to ask for those things which pertain to our salvation. St. Albert the Great counseled that we should pray for these even to the exclusion of praying for food and shelter, for “your Father knows that you have need of all these things” (Matthew 6, 32).  God, whose will is for our salvation, will surely not deny what we truly need in order to be saved.  We recall that the reason God grants us our requests is out of his love for us, but also for his own great glory: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”