LENTEN REFLECTION

Message

Only  in our  Lord  Jesus Christ, do we  have fulness of life. He satisfies all our  searching and yearning. He is the Good we seek. He is so close to us,  He makes His home with  us, in which there is room for all. In imitation of our  Lord and participating in His being, we are  to have room in our  hearts for all, and lead all to our  Lord who saves all.

Gospel Reading

14 “Do not  let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my  Father’s house there are  many dwelling places. If it were not  so, would I have told you  that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And  if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you  to myself, so that where I am, there you  may be  also. 4 And  you  know the  way   to  the   place where I  am going.” 5 Thomas said to  him, “Lord, we  do  not  know where you  are  going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am  the way, and the  truth, and the  life. No one comes to the  Father except through me. 7 If you  know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you  do know him  and have seen him.”

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to  him, “Have I been with  you  all this  time, Philip, and you  still  do  not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. 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? The words that I say to you  I do  not  speak on  my  own; but  the  Father who dwells in me  does his works. 11 Believe me  that I am  in the  Father and the Father is in  me;  but  if you  do  not, then believe me  because of  the  works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the  one who believes in me will also do the works that I do  and, in fact,  will do  greater works than these, because I am going to the  Father.

In Jn 12:37-43, we  have the  ending of the  Book of Signs (the  first  half  of John’s Gospel after the  prologue), in which the  signs  Jesus  performed and His teaching have been recounted. The  ending is a rejection of Jesus by  the  world and the  Jewish authorities, because they had shut their ears and eyes so  that they do  not  hear or  see and their hearts were sleepy. And  Jn 12:44-50, we  have a summary of Jesus’s mission: He is the Light  of the  world and His work  gives us  all eternal life. The  rejection of our  Lord  that continues today, is indeed real  sadness and unhappiness in the world. At the  same time though, as His disciples, we  have our  Lord  as our  Light  and eternal life in the  present life. The  next half  of John’s Gospel is the  Book of Glory,  in which we  have the  Passion, Crucifixion, Death, Burial  and Resurrection of our  Lord  presented as His glorification. The Jesus who worked signs, was crucified and died and buried, is also the  risen Jesus, the  pre-existing Word who is God  (Jn 1:1-18.  His passion and death are  sorrowful but they are   also  His glorification and  the   Father’s  glorification because  they are   the culmination of  the   salvation of  all  creation. The   sadness  and sorrow only   lead to immeasurable joy and peace; for we  receive the  Holy  Spirit, and God  and Jesus come to  make their home with  us  (Jn  14:23-26). God  makes His home with  us. We  become God’s  house;  the  Church is God’s  house, in which are  many rooms. The  Holy  Spirit is poured out  abundantly to all believers, who become temples of the  Holy Spirit (Gal 4:6, 1 Cor 3:16), and together as Church, we are God’s Spiritual Building (1 Peter 2:4-9), God’s House in which there are  many rooms, which our  Lord has prepared for us (Jn 14:2) and in which there will be  fulness of the  beatific vision of God  at the  end of our  earthly life when the  Lord will come for us so that we can  be where He is (Jn 14:3).

Today’s Gospel reading is part of Jesus’s farewell discourse at the  Last Supper, starting from Chapter 13 to Chapter 17. Jesus is going to the  Father by His crucifixion and death and burial, the  disciples are  sad, and the  Lord  speaks so  tenderly to  them, promising and indeed already giving them that joy and peace He alone gives. He washes their feet as an indelible lesson in humble self-emptying love, gives them the  new commandment to love  one another as He has loved (Jn 13), consoles them and promises the  Holy Spirit (Jn 14), calls them friends and tells them of His great love  for  them (Jn15:13-15), asks the  disciples to remain in Him and bear much fruit and love  one another (Jn 15) though the  world will be  opposed to  them, tells them of the  coming persecution but  assures them they will get  peace and joy (Jn 16), and prays for them in the  High  Priestly Prayer (Jn 17). Throughout the  discourse, our  Lord emphatically promises the  Holy Spirit, who will continuously work  in the  disciples (Jn 14:16-17, 15:26,  16:1-15), and confirms He will be with  the  disciples and they will be in Him (Jn 14:18-20, 23; 17:21-23). Jesus’s going to the  Father, is also His coming to His disciples. The many rooms in the  Father’s house are in heaven and already here on  earth through the  work  of the  Holy Spirit. The Church is the  mystical body of Christ, and is also God’s spiritual building. God  is infinite, and there is room for all disciples, in God’s house, in Christ’s mystical body.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the way, the  truth and life; He is the way  to God, and being true

God  and true Man, He is the Truth and the  Life. He leads us to Himself, to the Good.

He is the way, because that is His saving work  on the  cross; when with  His very  blood He sealed the  new eternal covenant for the  forgiveness of sin and reconciled humankind to the  Father (Mt  26:26-28, Jn  6:35,  52-59).  He  is the  salvation of  the  world. Only  God forgives sin, and only  God  saves. But  to  be  saved, humankind should be  presented to God, by  assuming the   state of  humankind and sanctifying it;  or  in  Old Testament language, through offering a sacrifice in the  temple; Jesus is thus the  lamb of God who takes away the  sin of the world (Jn 1:29); acting as the  Priest who offers the  sacrifice and being that one perfect permanent sacrifice that is offered to God  the  Father (Heb  10:1-

18). Humankind can  then participate in the  divine. Jesus saved humankind because He is true God, and true Man, who both saves and brings humankind to  the  Father in His nature as God  incarnate. As Gregory of  Nazianzus says, what is not  assumed is not saved. God  became incarnate and assumed human nature, in order to save humankind.

He is the Truth because He is the Word, and He is God. He is the  explanation of all the ultimate things of life, of all existence. He is the  final  cause. He is the  reason and the explanation of why there is anything instead of nothing. In our ordinary course of affairs, we  seek the Truth. We  seek the  Good. As St Thomas Aquinas teaches, all things to  the extent that they seek their perfection ultimately seek God  Himself. And as St Augustine found out  after a long phase of debauchery, God  has created us for  Himself and our heart is restless until  it rests in God. All who seek the  good, ultimately seek God, who is the Good. Truth is goodness and beauty. And ultimately only  in God  do we find ultimate goodness and beauty, and only  in God  do we participate in goodness and beauty.

He is Life because He is the  source of all being, all things were created through Him, and He continues to give  life to all beings, as shown in the  life-giving miracles or signs, and He is Life itself in itself. He is Life because through the resurrection, He conquered death. We  need not   fear   death anymore. Annihilation by  death is  humankind’s  primordial existential fear, leading to so many stories, myths, and theories; but in our  Lord, we have the  final  answer to the  mystery of life, and we  have the  defeat of death; we  live even if we die,  because we are  raised from the  dead to be with  Him and in Him (Jn 11:25-27).