Pruning to purify

Where do we go? How do we prepare? These questions are part of the necessary prelude to the possibility of encountering the Divine. Perhaps we respond to the attraction to a holy place like the psalmist from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today proclaims about Jerusalem. The passion of a people for a holy place can create conflict as is witnessed today in Israel. The preparation of our sinful flesh through purification rituals has also been a source of discrimination of the chosen from the others. Jesus dialogue in the Gospel of John compares the relationship with God as that of vine and branches. John begins his Gospel with the proclamation that the Word has become flesh. The Incarnation is the purification ritual from the will of God. This indwelling of the Spirit, like the branch taking life from the vine has the location of the human being. The universal catholic Body of Christ is the intimacy for which the preparation is done.