“1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you, 3 and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going. 5 Thomas said, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said: I am the Way; I am Truth and Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him. 8 Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and then we shall be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, 9 ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, so how can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? What I say to you I do not speak of my own accord: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his works. 11 You must believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe it on the evidence of these works. 12 In all truth I tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, and will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.” – Gospel of John, 14: 1 – 12

 

Last week, Jesus; through the Holy Gospel according to St. John spoke about Himself as the Gatekeeper through which the sheep who hear His voice, enter His sheepfold. Today, the Evangelist St. John in the words of Jesus Himself enlightens the faithful not only about the most profound truth about Jesus’ relationship with His Almighty, but also about the way how we the faithful, can as well enjoy a personal relationship with The Father. Christ our Lord is constantly reminding us that He is our Good Shepherd. And as a good shepherd, He is always mindful of leading His flock to the Promised Land (New Jerusalem / Heaven) which is the pasture for all the sheep who recognize His voice and follow Him. He assures us that everyone who listens to his voice and place their trust in His way, will all be given a place in His sheepfold. “You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house there are many places to live in…”

The incarnation of God in the person of Christ Jesus is not only the Divine Revelation of The Trinity’s unfathomable zealous love for all of creation – visible & invisible, but it is also The Trinity’s merciful and most compassionate will of restoring the fallen spiritual nature, substance and beauty of mankind, which was fearfully and lovingly created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, Jesus came into the world, to once again unite mankind with the purity & holiness of its Creator, and to enable it to have full communion with the purpose for which it was created – which is to worship and give glory to God.

In asking Jesus, “how can we know the way?”, since “we do not know where you are going”, the apostle Thomas draws our mind to a few radical questions which many wandering souls ask even to this day. Where is God? Where is heaven? How do we get there? Jesus not only has answers to these questions, but through today’s Holy Gospel, He tells us that He Himself is the answer. Our Father who is in heaven, is eternal life, indescribable holiness, unfathomable mercy, invincible power and unconditional love. To be with this Father in heaven, every soul has to attain the lumen gentium. The Light of Nations – Jesus, is not a street or highway to heaven, as one may simply think off. Instead, He is the perfect manifestation of all that The Father is. He loves like His Father, He is merciful as His Father, He is wisdom as is His Father, He is life as is His Father.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 240: “Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” And in the following para 241, the CCC teaches: For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; as “the image of the invisible God”; as the “radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature”.

Therefore, this is precisely why Jesus proclaims, “I am the Way; the Truth and the Life.” Replying to His disciple Phillip, Jesus is infact teaching all of us that if we known Him we will know His Father as well. And this is nothing but truth. In the person of Jesus, we see the Divinity and Sovereignty of God the Father. In the will of Jesus visibly manifested in His deeds, we see the invisible working of God the Holy Ghost – the living Spirit of God. In the end, Jesus reveals a great truth, which instill great hope; such that only He can give. The truth is in His words: “whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, and will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.”

 

John Roger Anthony