Vine-wood has only one purpose—to give grapes. Jesus shares the same image in John 15: “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

Sense in your spirit the pain of the Lord as that of a husband of a wife who has become the most debased of whores that ever existed. The pain of God yields not “grapes of wrath,” but grapes of love—wine for Eucharist. Our blood lives because Jesus’ was poured out for us. Greater is the redemptive blood of Jesus than all our infidelity. The tenderness of God is described with all the exuberance of the Song of Songs.

However unfaithful you have been to the call of the Lord upon your life, be less in awe about this, than in awe about the constancy of God’s love for you. Greater is God’s love than your sin. Engraft yourself on the vine again—the only way your life will bear fruit.