Reflection
Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles
1 Corinthians 15:1-8
Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5
John 14:6-14
The reading today immediately follows the scene where Jesus is gently explaining to the Apostles that he will soon return to the Father’s house, where there are many mansions, and that he is going to prepare a place for them. He tells them that they know the way, and where he is going, but they do not understand that he is talking about heaven and eternal life. In response to Thomas’s question, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” Jesus responds, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life.” Jesus also tells them, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. This is an amazing truth – if you know Christ, you know God, the Father. Jesus, through his incarnation, words, deeds, sufferings, his entire life, death, and resurrection, has revealed the Father to us. This is stunning in its depth and yet its simplicity.
The love of God, his heart for his children, is made manifest in the person of Jesus and in every move he makes. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read, ‘Because our Lord became man in order to do the Father’s will, even the least characteristic of his mysteries manifest God’s love among us.’
To know Christ is to know the Father. During a vision of Jesus, St. Teresa of Avila was shown that the soul is like a castle of crystal with many rooms, ‘where the most pure King takes his ease and delight.’ In her spiritual classic, The Interior Castle, she explains that the gateway to the castle (our very own soul), is prayer. The indwelling of God in our souls, is humility itself. He waits there patiently for us. Let us go there. Let us go to the depths of our souls, anticipating an encounter with the most high God, and know with certitude, like St. John of the Cross in The Dark Night of the Soul, as he describes entering the secret place of his soul, that God is there:
I had no light nor guide, save that which burned within my heart,
that guided me more surely than the noonday sun
to the place where he who knew me well, awaited me.
Jesus is the Way, stay close to him. He is within you. Listen to him. Talk to him. Follow him.
Jesus is the Truth; God is true to his promises. Jesus teaches that true worship must be in ‘spirit and truth.’ Trust in him. Believe in him.
Jesus is the Life because he shares the divine life with the Father, and, incredibly, we are invited to participate in that divine life. And as he tells us, ‘Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.’ Live in him. Rest in him. Abide in Him. Because he is the Way the Truth and the Life.