Abide with me

Today is the feast of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux (1153) and the gospel is this:

John 15:7-11

⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. ⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

"Abide" was a word often used in Appalachia when I grew up there.

You'd be walking down the street and people up on their porch would say, "Jimmy, come up and 'bide a spell." And I would.

Often there was no conversation at all, just 'abiding', being with, being close to.

And I think that's what Jesus is talking about in John 15--just 'being with him', without agenda or purpose. Just 'biding a spell'.

Just that.

And it is enough.

Enough and more than enough.

Abiding is enough and more than enough.