The Gospel can be lived only in Christ, with Christ, for Christ. Anyone who stands outside this eternal truth will never be able to live the Gospel. Jesus has poured a river of water and blood on humanity. It is in this water and blood that we are planted at the moment of Baptism. But this water and blood will have to feed in order to produce fruits of eternal life. Out of the water is the desert. The prophet Ezekiel announces this truth through the vision of the great river that flows from the right side of the New Temple of God which is Christ Jesus. Jesus announces it in the similitude of the vine and the branches. The shoot produces if combined with the vine.
Will a man or a woman want to have pure eyes and look at a woman or a man as our Heavenly Father looks at them? They will have to be planted in the water and blood that flow from the side of Christ, which is the grace of the sacraments and growth in the Holy Spirit. Branches must remain tied to the real vine. Do they come out of the water? After a short time, they are already dry trees, shoots good only for fire. From spiritual beings they become again fleshly. We always need the grace of God which has been given entirely to the Christian and made available to every person.
All our sins are committed when we uproot ourselves from the river of life and transplant ourselves in the desert. What is our temptation today? Having reduced the Gospel to pure philosophy, no longer considering it the law of eternal life for us - and with the Gospel we have also repudiated the Commandments - we want the Church only for the religious apparatus, made up of celebrations and rites, but without the participation of the heart and mind. The Eucharist is not a ritual. It is the "memory" of the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. It is the "memory" that must be eaten with distinction and discernment. But it is also "memory" that must be taken because we become the living memory of Christ Jesus.
Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, Angels and Saints make us a living memory of Jesus.
Abba Meskel