Christ is the vine, we are the branches.

Prayer on the 11th of January comes at the end of the holiday season.

In December, we celebrated the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to stir his Life in each one of us. And with the beginning of the new year, we have the possibility to glimpse the beautiful, signifi cant and happy “form” of this Life in us: holiness. In fact, on 14 January, we recall the canonisation of mother Thouret. May it be for us the occasion to renew the action of the Holy Spirit.

This month we meditate on the Gospel according to John (15, 1-8).

Christ is the vine, I am the branch. He and I are the same plant, the same life, same root and same lymph. A passionate newness. We are the extension of that trunk, we are made of the same matter, like a brazier’s sparks, like drops of the ocean and like breath in the air. Jesus-vine continuously pushes the lymph towards the last branch, towards the last bud, whether I am asleep or awake. It doesn’t depend on me but on Him. But my life depends on that lymph. My Father is the gardener: A farmer God, who keeps himself busy around me; he does not hold the sceptre, but the hoe, he does not sit on the throne but on the small wall of his vineyard. To contemplate me. With his beautiful and hopeful eyes.

We, Sisters of Charity, are part of the “vineyard” which St. Jeanne Antide built with great effort. Nevertheless, it grew bigger and gave fruits of charity.

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