While it is true that all his words are divine, this sentence is especially significant because in it the Lord and Master sums up his doctrine of life leaving the magna charta for 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 deep hidden meaning and to imbue our whole lives with it.

    In reading this chapter from John’s Gospel, one is struck by the imagery used, that of the vine and the branches, so familiar to a people who for centuries planted vineyards and cultivated grapevines. They knew well that only the vine engrafted onto the trunk can become green with leaves and rich with clusters of grapes. The vine that is cut off, on the other hand, 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," with the meaning of being firmly tied and intimately engrafted onto 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" has 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 first taken the initiative and reached out to humanity, or better still, if he had not first reached out 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 in our life what Baptism has worked and to discover the inexhaustible riches it has deposited there.

    How? By living the word, by making it bear fruit, by giving it a permanent home 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 may sprout 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 (see Jn 15:9). This is the vital lymph that rises from the roots, up through the trunk and to the furthest 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 to love means to live his commandments which are all summed up in that great and new commandment of mutual love.

    To give us a confirmation so that we may know we are indeed 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 always loved. 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 ask for graces, but with no intention of conforming our life to what God asks of us. Would it be right to expect him to grant what we ask? Wouldn’t our prayer be different if it were an expression of our union with Jesus, and if it were Jesus himself in us who presents the requests to his Father?