Question. Who gave you this Name?Answer. My Sponsors in Baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.
Grafted Into the Vine
Grape Phylloxera is a kind of aphid, and a noxious pest of grape vines throughout the world. It attacks the roots of the vines, gradually cutting off the flow of nutrients and water to the vine itself. Originally native to eastern North America, in the late 19th century it spread to Europe where it destroyed vineyards and most of the European grape and wine industry. Fortunately, the native vines of North America though coarse are resistant to phylloxera, and when shoots or scions of the desirable European varieties were grafted into the healthy American vine stock, vines resulted that were resistant to phylloxera and bearing the refined European grapes resulted. We too – infected indeed by the disease of sin – have been grafted into Christ (an image Paul uses ofChristians in Romans 11) – the sinless vine stock – and in him we both protected from sin and made fruitful.In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (John 15:5).” This is the key to understanding the