Abide in me and I in you › Jn 15, 4.

This saying of Jesus is very popular, but what exactly does the word abide mean? Dictionaries offer us more than fifty different synonyms, from “not to leave” and “to stay” to “to rest“. However, in today’s Gospel, the word should have two meanings. The first is to continue to be in the state you are in right now. The second meaning is more dynamic: to decide at every moment not to leave but to stay. Abide in me. At baptism, we were already grafted onto the life of Jesus (see Rom 11:17), so it is enough if we remain in him. We should abide in his love because he has already placed us in it.

We all know how easy it is to forget this truth. And this is where the second meaning of the word stay comes into play. Because we tend to forget that we are connected with Jesus, we must make a new decision for this connection with him daily. Our life is also like a branch that needs the vine’s nourishment (Jn 15:4-5): in the grace of Jesus, we can find the strength required to stay with him. Thanks to Grace, we can trust him even amid trials and see the strength to fight temptation or ask him for guidance and help before making difficult decisions. Staying with Jesus like this may seem complicated, but he promised to help us. But as? As I abide in you.

We can abide in Jesus because he chose to abide in us. He is connected to us by love. He is connected to us even when we do not feel this connection. Whenever we stay close to him, he is ready to encourage us. Thanks to this constant mutual exchange of life and love, our heart finds peace and rest – Jesus remains in us, and we in him. We can experience it, for example, when it fills us with peace during prayer. Or when we decide to repent or make peace with someone we hurt. We also see it in love, which gives us the strength to serve others. That is the fruit of abiding in Jesus.