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Homily for the fifth Sunday
of Easter - Year A - Jn. 14:1-12
by
Canon Dr. Daniel Meynen
" «Let not your
hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's
house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I
go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you
may be also. And you know the way where I am going.»
" Thomas said to him,
«Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the
way?» Jesus said to him, «I am the way, and the truth, and
the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me,
you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have
seen him.»
" Philip said to him,
«Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.»
Jesus said to him, «Have I been with you so long, and yet you do
not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can
you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father
and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my
own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe
me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for
the sake of the works themselves.
" «Truly, truly, I
say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and
greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.»
"
Homily:
" «Let not your
hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.» "
Here is a discourse of
Jesus that is completely oriented toward the faith we should have in
him! It is part of Jesus' discourse on Holy Thursday, when he is about
to institute the sacrament of the Eucharist, the Mystery of faith par
excellence!
Let us recall what faith
is. Briefly, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, faith is a spiritual
contact through which we receive the fruits of the Passion of Christ,
fruits that are constituted of the remission of our sins and of the
gift of grace that introduces us into eternal Life, the very Life of
God. In other words, let us say that, through faith, we live of the
Life of the risen Jesus, and we are already resurrected with Him, in
the measure that we remain in contact or in communion with the Passion
of the Lord.
Faith always takes on two
aspects, simultaneously, indissociably. The first aspect is that of
obscurity: we must accept not seeing, touching, hearing, smelling or
tasting what we believe. Even worse, we must accept not understanding
what we believe. The second aspect is that of light. Although it is
simultaneous with the first aspect, it is nonetheless its consequence:
faith gives us light, faith enlightens us, faith illuminates all of our
life, in the measure that we accept its apparent obscurity.
So Jesus invites his
disciples to believe in him: "Believe in God, believe also in me." Is
there a difference between believing in God and believing in Jesus?
Yes, and it is essential. We Christians, we Roman Catholics, we believe
in Jesus the Son of God. We do not believe only in God, as do the
followers of other religions. We believe in this Man, Jesus of
Nazareth, who died and was resurrected, who is first and foremost God,
and the Son of God!
The Roman Catholic Church
is proud of this faith, which she announces to the entire world! She is
proud of this faith, for, through the grace and the mercy of God,
contrary to all the Pilates who scorn the truth, the Roman Catholic
Church is proud and happy to say that she has received from the Lord
Jesus and from his Holy Spirit the deposit of the Truth about God and
about Man in his entirety, created in the image and likeness of God,
who is one, in three persons.
" Thomas said to him,
«Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the
way?» Jesus said to him, «I am the way, and the truth, and
the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.» "
We know this saying of
Jesus: "I am the way, the truth and the life." But do we understand it?
It is not uncommon for us to speak of things we do not understand well.
So when Jesus says: "I am the way", what does he mean? This: Jesus is
the mediator, the intermediary, he through whom we must pass to go to
the Father. And this implies that Jesus is both God and Man. Jesus is
not solely man: he is also, and first, God, for he is our mediator, our
sole mediator before God.
For Jesus, to be mediator
means that he unites in himself the natures proper to each of the
elements of his mediation, which are God (the Father), and man (every
man or woman in particular). In other words, the mediator finds himself
in the middle, between the extremes of his mediation, which are God and
man. And it is indeed a middle in the proper sense, a geometric middle
as well as a middle in the spiritual sense: for the Christian religion
always involves both the body and the soul. Now, practically,
materially, a middle is known and determined only if we know the total
distance between the extremes. Thus, when we speak of Jesus the Way,
the mediator who leads us to the Father, we are necessarily speaking of
Jesus true God and true Man! Such is our faith.
" «Truly, truly, I
say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and
greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.»
"
How could we do works
greater than those of Jesus? Quite simply by believing in Jesus, by
believing in God! May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, our model and our
Mother in the faith, help us to always believe in her Son, in order
that by thus participating in the Passion of the Lord, we might share
in his Resurrection! Amen!
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