JESUS and the FATHER are ONE!

FRIENDS and SERVANTS of the WORD

3 MAY 2024   EASTER FRIDAY 5

SAINTS PHILIP & JAMES APOSTLES

WORD of the DAY 

Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever 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 is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.                                    (John 14: 6-11)

How shall I live this Word?   

In preaching, Jesus often makes present His union with the Father and His mission, His work which is precisely that of making us know God as Father. Already to Thomas, Jesus had reaffirmed this task of revealing the Father and from this being able to have sure knowledge, “from now on you know Him and have seen Him” (14:7). Philip then asks Jesus to show them the Father. And Jesus patiently repeats what He had just said to Thomas, “Whoever sees Me has seen the Father” (14.9). He then again emphasizes the intimate union with the Father, the reciprocal immanence between the Father and the Son, to be understood as saying that knowing and seeing the Father is equivalent to believing that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Their mutual love makes them one dwelling of the other. The Son is the Word of the Father; He is the Word of God and His word gives what it says, because it is what He says.

Help us Jesus to enter into this relationship of Love! O Holy Spirit make us whole with Your presence!

The voice of Pope Francis Meditation at St. Martha 10 May 2020

The Father was always present in the life of Jesus, and Jesus spoke of it. Jesus prayed to the Father. And many times, Jesus spoke of the Father who cares for us, as He cares for the birds, the lilies of the field… The Father. And when the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, Jesus taught them to pray to the Father, ‘Our Father’ (Mt 6:9). He always turns to the Father. But in this passage, it is very strong. It is as if it opened the doors of the omnipotence of prayer. “For I am with the Father: ask and I will do everything. But because the Father will do it with Me” (Jn 14:11). This trust in the Father, trust in the Father who is able to do everything.

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