Apart from Me You Can Do Nothing

Gospel Reflection for Wednesday May 21, 2025

Christ the Divine Architect

Today’s Gospel continues the Last Supper discourse from the Gospel of St. John. Here we find one of the most important analogies that the Lord gives to us:

“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.” John 15:5

The whole foundation of the spiritual life is found in this statement. Our Lord compares Himself to the vine, that source of life for all that is attached to it. Any fruit, branches, leaves, etc. that are found on the plant rely on the vine to give them their nutrients in order to survive. To be cut off from the vine means death for that which grows from it. In the same way, Christ is the vine for our lives. This is both in the sense of our actual existence as well as in our spiritual life.

God is first cause for all creatures. He sustains us in existence, and we participate in His very being. To this end, He is the vine, and we are branches. Without the vine, we cannot hope to even BE. So many times, we assume that God is like the clockmaker who creates the thing and then steps back and watches it go. That is very Deist. That is not the Catholic understanding of God. He holds all things in existence and continually causes them to be. He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.

In addition to this, He is also the root of our spiritual life. Christ’s cross is the tree, and He is the vine by which divine life is dispensed to us through the sacraments. Without this relationship, our spiritual life would be sterile and bear no fruit. He sustains us through the grace that poured out from the cross through the sacraments.

In light of both of these, we can see why, after comparing Himself to the branches, Our Lord says: Apart from me you can do nothing. This phrase is the foundation of the spiritual life. From this intimate truth from Out Lord, the virtue of humility ought to be inspired in us and, from that, the other virtues are able to grow.

God is the source of all good things. He is the source of all good things in us. Anything good that we are able to do is a result of the grace that God gives us to move us and able us to act in that good. Every movement of virtue, prayer, good works, even the basis of faith itself, is done according to this divine premotion begun and sustained by God. We must respond to this with great humility. Humility, as a virtue, allows us to see ourselves as we are before God. We must see ourselves in the way that Our Lord describes here, that apart from Him, we can do nothing.

It is in that understanding that a radical abandonment and dependence on God can truly be formed in us.

He is the vine.

We are the branch.

Apart from Him, we can do nothing.