John 20:19–23

¹⁹  On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,\❳ Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰  When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. ²¹  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”²²  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

John 20:19–23 ESV – Bible Gateway

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For Pentecost, like the Ascension, the Gospel reading, in a sense, is trumped by the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles; which goes into more details. In this case our Gospel reading takes place on the night of the Resurrection when Jesus first meets with the majority of the Apostles in the upper room. For the Ascension, Jesus leaves the Apostles who are in a state of joy and our fully preparing themselves for the promise of the Holy Spirit spending time day and night in prayer.

This reading shows the Apostles in the midst of uncertainty and fear. They know something is going on and they have reports of Jesus’ return, but also knew their own precarious position regarding the authorities.

The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture for this Gospel points out:

As he did in regard to Mary Magdalene, John provides insight into the spiritual disposition of Jesus’ disciples as they are gathered in Jerusalem. Mary came to Jesus’ tomb “while it was still dark” (20:1). The disciples are similarly gathered in the evening darkness, †signifying the absence of Christ the light and their own hopelessness. [1]

Peter Kreeft notes:

The disciples were cowering in fear behind locked doors because they thought, quite naturally, that those who had succeeded in killing Jesus would now come after them too. But Christ came through their locked doors, and he also comes through ours. For it’s not just keys but fear that locks our doors, especially the fear that God does not wholly love us and understand us and our weaknesses; that we cannot trust him completely. And pride, and the refusal to admit that we are in the wrong. But faith and love cast out fear. Even weak faith and love let him in. Open the door to him one inch, and he will come in a mile. [2]

Jesus appears amidst them and tells them “Peace be with you.” I think it is difficult to really envision this scene and the apostle’s reaction. The doors are locked to prevent intrusion and Jesus appears directly among them. They would be so very aware that the doors are locked. They truly were in need of that peace that Jesus was giving them in this circumstance. Plus what would they make of the fact that right after this Jesus shows them his hands and side, a demonstration of the wounds that still appear in his glorified body.

Returning to the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture:

The presence of the wounds of crucifixion on the risen Jesus’ body is significant. They indicate that the body resurrected to glory is the same one that died on the cross (see Luke 24:39). Resurrection is not the return of a human being to ordinary mortal life but total transformation into a glorified mode of existence. As St. Paul wrote, the natural body is transfigured by the Holy Spirit into a glorified, “spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44). The wounds on Jesus’ resurrected body reveal that he is forever fixed in the act of love in which he died. The love and sacrifice that he offered on the cross are forever present before the Father as “expiation for our sins, and … for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Jesus’ wounds also signify that the victory of the resurrection comes only through the cross. Similarly, the Lamb in the book of Revelation bears the wound of his slaughter by which he accomplished the work of redemption (Rev 5:6, 9). In this way, St. Thomas Aquinas, drawing on the Venerable Bede, can speak of the wounds on Jesus’ resurrected body as “trophies” of his victory.[3]

Jesus shows them his wounds to show them that he can heal their wounds. That he would be healing and preparing them so that they in turn can heal and prepare others. Jesus makes this explicit when he repeats a blessing of peace on them and then tells them that he is passing on a mission to them given by his father. When Jesus breathes on them and institutes the sacrament of reconciliation, he is equipping them in the good news, the evangelium, for the forgiveness of sins. The very healing we all need the most. The shalom Jesus gives them, they in turn will give and pass onto to others who will find true peace in this sacrament. There is and will always be woundedness in the body of Christ, but there will also always be access to a remedy.

CCC 1462 Forgiveness of sins brings reconciliation with God, but also with the Church. Since ancient times the bishop, visible head of a particular Church, has thus rightfully been considered to be the one who principally has the power and ministry of reconciliation: he is the moderator of the penitential discipline. Priests, his collaborators, exercise it to the extent that they have received the commission either from their bishop (or religious superior) or the Pope, according to the law of the Church

In his book titled “The Life of Christ”, Venerable Fulton J. Sheen wrote:

“Then Our Lord breathed on them as He conferred some power of the Holy Spirit. When love is deep, it is always speechless or wordless; God’s love is so deep that it can be expressed humanly by a sigh or a breath. Now that the Apostles had learned to lisp the alphabet of Redemption, He breathed on them as a sign and an earnest of what was to come. It was but a cloud that would precede the plenteous rain; better still, it was the breath of the Spirit’s influence and a foretelling of the rushing wind of Pentecost. As He had breathed into Adam the breath of natural life, so now He breathed into His Apostles, the foundation of His Church, the breath of spiritual life. As man became the image of God in virtue of the soul that was breathed into him, so now they became the image of Christ as the power of the Spirit was breathed into them. The Greek word used to express His breathing on them is employed nowhere else in the New Testament; but it is the very word which the Greek translators of the Hebrew used to describe God’s breathing a living soul into Adam. Thus there was a new creation as the first fruit of the Redemption.…

“Three times the Holy Spirit is mentioned with some external sign; as a dove at Christ’s baptism betokening His innocence and Divine Sonship; as fiery tongues on the day of Pentecost as a sign of the Spirit’s power to convert the world; and as the breath of the Risen Christ with all of its regenerative power.”[4]

The mission that the Holy Spirit empowers is not for the Apostles and their descendants alone. We are also sent forth into the world to empower the spread of the good news.

St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote:

All of us who have received one and the same Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, are in a sense blended together with one another and with God. For if Christ, together with the Father’s and his own Spirit, comes to dwell in each of us, though we are many, still the Spirit is one and undivided. He binds together the spirits of each and every one of us, … and makes all appear as one in him. For just as the power of Christ’s sacred flesh unites those in whom it dwells into one body, I think that in the same way the one and undivided Spirit of God, who dwells in all, leads all into spiritual unity.[5]

Sources

• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C
• The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. Francis Martin, William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)  ↩
2. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Year C  ↩
3. aquinas54  ↩
4. Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1990), 420.  ↩
5. St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Jo. ev., 11, 11: PG 74, 561.  ↩

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16–20 ESV – Bible Gateway

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The Ascension is one occasion where the First Reading for the gives us the details since they do not reference it in any of the Gospels. It is the Acts of the Apostles that this event is told. The passage used is from the end of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus gives the disciples, and all of us, the Great Commission.

From the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture for the Gospel of Matthew:

Placing the final scene in Galilee, Matthew brings the story full circle. This is where it all began, where Jesus grew into manhood (2:22–23), where the first apostles were recruited (4:18–22), and where the message of the kingdom first sounded forth (4:12–17). Readers have anticipated a return to Galilee since the prediction in 26:32 and the instructions given in verses 7 and 10. Galilee, the launching point for the Messiah’s mission to Israel, is now to become the take-off point for a mission to the whole world (v. 19).[1]

At the end of the 40 days Jesus stayed with them, they returned to “they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away.” (Acts 1:12)

It seems remarkable that it explicitly says some disciples (the eleven), that some doubted. Later on, after 40 days added to the years they spent with him, they are still asking questions as to restoring a political kingdom. (Acts 1:6)

More remarkable is how we still don’t fully answer this call to “make disciples of all nations” wanting to outsource it to others more capable.

From Peter Kreeft:

Christ explicitly connects our command to evangelize with his own authority. He says, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore,” go out and convert the world. Keep your eyes on me, he says, on my authority, not yours; not on your own fears and inadequacy, or other people’s resistance and rebellion, but on my authority, the authority of my truth and my love.[2]

John Bergsma makes this distinction:

Let us consider this catechetical mission a little more closely. The words of the Gospel do not say “teaching them all that I have commanded you,” but rather “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” It’s like the difference between a course in hydrodynamics and a course in swimming. You ought not to learn simply the theory of the buoyancy of bodies in water, but you must learn how to swim! We have sadly neglected this. With good intentions, we have taught many people about Christianity but not how to live the Christian life.[3]

There is such a gap between what we are called to do and what we do. Speaking from personal experience, this call is rather daunting when we have any inkling of the weight of it. The call overwhelmed some of the Prophets as I understand it now. A total change to their life that was not a call to personal comfort. We think first about the areas where we are lacking and can’t see that God can be exalted even in our weakness. Our brokenness is no barrier to this call. I am preaching to myself here because I am more willing to offer excuses than to offer myself more fully to Christ. St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, “You cannot be half a saint. You must be a whole saint or no saint at all.”

The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible has these notes on this passage:

28:19 Go therefore: Christ’s commission to evangelize and catechize the world fulfills God’s covenant oath to Abraham that “all the nations” would be blessed (Gen 22:18; Gal 3:8). His outline for the Church’s mission is threefold: (1) Evangelizing all nations involves more than winning individuals; it entails the conversion of entire cultures. Every area of life must be brought under the Lordship of Christ and in line with the gospel. (2) The administration of the sacraments is essential to the Church’s mission and our response. Baptizing new converts is the first step in a long process of sanctification and participation in the life of the Church. (3) The transmission of all that Christ taught necessitates the assistance of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church to proclaim the gospel infallibly (cf. Jn 14:26). See note on Jn 16:13.

The Sacrament of Baptism incorporates Christians into the divine family of the Trinity as children of God (cf. Gal 3:26, 27). The single name of the Father, Son, and Spirit reveals the unity of God’s inner life and the oneness of his nature. This expression has become the normative baptismal formula for the Church (CCC [[849 (CCC)|849]], [[1122 (CCC)|1122]], [[1257 (CCC)|1257]]).[4]

Brant Pitre elaborates on the importance of the Ascension:

it is important to recall that the Ascension is a distinct event from the resurrection of Jesus. Sometimes these can get blurred in people’s minds. It is very important to remember that the resurrection is the reunification, the reunion, of Jesus’ body and soul into a new glorified state, and that happens on Easter Sunday. However, the Ascension, which takes place 40 days later, is, as the Catechism says, “the irreversible entry of Jesus’ humanity into divine glory.” So it’s a distinct event in terms of time, but also in terms of significance. And third and finally, as we will see in a minute—this is really important—the Ascension of Jesus is a bodily event. It’s not just the ascension of his soul into heaven—like our souls might go to heaven after we die—it’s the entry of his soul and his body into glory, as the catechism says in paragraph [[663 (CCC)|663]], Christ is “seated bodily at the right hand of the Father.” That’s what we mean when we say in the Apostle’s Creed, “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”[5]

When Jesus gave us this mission, he knew how weak we were and that we would have to learn over and over we can do nothing without him. Our self-reliance will betray us time and time again. It is only when we fully see ourselves as unprofitable servants that we are opened up to glorifying him and making disciples. Here he reminds us he is with us “always, to the end of the age.” Else, where he reminds us that the Father loves us and the Holy Spirit has been sent to us as another advocate. We fail when we think we are all alone—nothing could be further from the truth—in fact, the Truth is seeking us.

From the Catechism:

CCC 659 “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys. But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity. Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand. Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul “as to one untimely born,” in a last apparition that established him as an apostle.p[6]

Sources

• The Gospel of Matthew (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)
• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A
• The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A – John Bergsma
• The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible꞉ The New Testament
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. The Gospel of Matthew, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Edward Sri and Curtis Mitch  ↩
2. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A, Ascension  ↩
3. The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, John Bergsma, Ascension  ↩
4. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament  ↩
5. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, Year A, Ascension  ↩
6. Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed). United States Catholic Conference.  ↩

Gospel: John 14:15–21

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:15–21 ESV – Bible Gateway

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This section from the Gospel of John is from the Farewell Discourse at the Last Supper.

Peter Kreeft offers a necessary corrective to the idea that the law, in the sense of the Commandments, binds us in a loveless manner.

First point: love and law are usually thought to be opposites. The Pharisees were loveless legalists. Obeying the laws—all the laws—was their thing, and their only thing. Jesus is often seen as the opposite: pro-love and anti-law. That’s a mistake. He was anti-legalism but not anti-law. He said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love is not first of all a feeling; it is a willing, a choice. That’s why love itself is commanded by Christ. You can’t command a feeling. How silly it would be to say, “I command you to feel sweet feelings of compassion or desire or concern for me.” To love God is simply to say, “Thy will be done,” and mean it, and live it. And that will of God for us is expressed by laws, by commandments.

…

Love brings us “in” to the other without losing our own identity. Human love in that way is an image of the love that holds God together in the Trinity. Love is the spiritual equivalent of “the strong nuclear force” in physics that holds all the matter in the universe together.[1]

Antinomianism and the idea that just as long as we “love” it then released us from observing the natural law seems especially strong now. This view often sees the commandments as just positive law that can change with the times.

Jesus comforts his disciples by further telling them of the Comforter, along with revealing more deeply the inner mystery of the Trinity.

The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture for the Gospel of John notes:

Jesus promises that once he has entered into heavenly glory, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always. This is the first of five promises about the Holy Spirit—the Advocate or Paraclete—made by Jesus in the Farewell Discourse. The Spirit is another Advocate because Jesus is also “an Advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1). The Paraclete is the Spirit of truth because he is the Spirit of Jesus, who is “the truth” (14:6), the revelation of God. While distinct from Jesus, the Spirit does not operate independently of him (16:13–15). Since the world does not receive Jesus (see sidebar on p. 37), the world cannot accept or receive the Spirit, who abides with Jesus (1:33). The world neither sees nor knows the Spirit because the world does not see or know the truth about Jesus by faith. The disciples, however, have some openness to Jesus in faith, which in turn disposes them to the Spirit. Jesus promises that the Spirit remains with and will be in his disciples. Through the Spirit, God comes to dwell in the hearts of Jesus’ disciples, much as the Father dwells in Jesus and Jesus dwells in the Father (14:11).[2]

and

The word translated in the NABRE as “Advocate” is the Greek word paraklētos, represented in English as Paraclete. The term comes from a verb meaning “to call to one’s side,” as with the Latin term advocatus, hence “Advocate.” The background for this term is the Greco-Roman courtroom. A paraclete was someone who could provide help and assistance to a person in a trial setting: give counsel, plead that person’s cause, intercede with the judge. The courtroom background for this term fits with the Gospel’s running themes of trial and judgment. As the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit serves as a counselor for the disciples. He will give comfort and help to the disciples when the hostile, unbelieving world persecutes them (14:16–17; 15:26). Dwelling in the disciples, he will lead them to a deeper understanding of Jesus (14:26; 16:12–15) and enable them to bear witness to him (15:26–27). The Spirit also serves as a prosecutor against the world, for he will prove to the disciples that the world is wrong about “sin and righteousness and condemnation” (16:8).[3]

From the Catechism:

§729 Only when the hour has arrived for his glorification does Jesus promise the coming of the Holy Spirit, since his Death and Resurrection will fulfill the promise made to the fathers. The Spirit of truth, the other Paraclete, will be given by the Father in answer to Jesus’ prayer; he will be sent by the Father in Jesus’ name; and Jesus will send him from the Father’s side, since he comes from the Father. The Holy Spirit will come and we shall know him; he will be with us for ever; he will remain with us. The Spirit will teach us everything, remind us of all that Christ said to us and bear witness to him. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and will glorify Christ. He will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment.[4]

Bishop Barron remarks on this passage:

Jesus promises to send us the Spirit of truth who will make us intimate friends of God. The Holy Spirit is the love shared by the Father and the Son. We have access to this holy heart of God only because the Father sent the Son into the world, into our dysfunction, even to the limits of godforsakenness and thereby gathered all of the world into the dynamism of the divine life.

Those who live in Christ are not outside of God as petitioners or supplicants; rather, they are in God as friends, sharers in the Spirit. And this spiritual life is what gives us knowledge of God—a knowledge, if you will, from within.

When the great masters of the Christian way speak of knowing God, they do not use the term in its distanced, analytical sense; they use it in the biblical sense, implying knowledge by way of personal intimacy. This is why St. Bernard of Clairvaux, for one, insists that initiates in the spiritual life know God not simply through books and lectures but through experience, the way one friend knows another. That knowledge is what the Holy Spirit facilitates.[5]

Sources

• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A
• The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition
• The Word on Fire Bible (Volume 1)꞉ The Gospels
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A, Sixth Sunday of Easter  ↩
2. Francis Martin, William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)  ↩
3. ibid  ↩
4. Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed). United States Catholic Conference. Paragraph 729  ↩
5. The Word on Fire Bible (Volume 1)꞉ The Gospels  ↩

John 14:1–12

14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² 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? ³ And if 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. ⁴ And you know the way to 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 had known me, you would have known 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 it is enough for us.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? 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 authority, 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, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

¹² “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

John 14:1–12 ESV – Bible Gateway

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This is part of the Farewell Discourse in John Gospel and occurs during the Last Supper. The Apostles hear more from Jesus on his impending death and that one of them will betray him.

Jesus has announced his imminent departure (13:33), but he reassures his disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled. In John, the Greek verb behind “troubled” connotes the distress experienced from the proximity of death (11:33; 12:27; 13:21). Instead, Jesus tells the disciples, to have faith, to trust in God the Father and in him. As the Father’s Son and perfect envoy, Jesus is absolutely reliable and trustworthy, and a faith response to him is a faith response to the Father who sent him (12:44).[1]

Peter Kreeft gives us one of the implications of what this means:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” That implies that we have some authority over our hearts. What we usually mean by our hearts is our feelings and emotions, and Jesus is telling us that we have the power to say “Be still!” to our hearts when they whine like a dog. We have a mind and a will, and God gave them to us as instruments to take care of our hearts like doctors. Our hearts are like gardens, and our minds and wills are like the tools that we need to keep the gardens from going to seed or going wild or dying. The mind knows that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, that nothing comes to us without his wise permission, and that his motive is always his love for us, his desire for our greatest good. And our will can choose to override and master the troubles that come from our weak and fearful heart. The troubles won’t simply go away, nor will the fears, but we can stop identifying with them and stop letting them master our thoughts and our choices. Our faith assures us that God is God and is always in control. That’s the key: faith has authority over feelings. Thus, Jesus not only says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” but tells us how: “Have faith also in me.”[2]

Steve Ray in his commentary on John, provides us some context for one aspect of this passage:

The parallels between Moses and Jesus continue to demonstrate that John is portraying Jesus as the New Moses (Deut 18:15, 18). “It is in the charge [commission] to Joshua in Deut. 31:7–8 that we find the words ‘fear not, neither be dismayed’. And so the final charge of Jesus to his disciples includes the injunction, ‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful’ (14:27, cf. 14:1).… According to Deut. 34:9, Moses apparently imparted the Spirit to Joshua and ordained him to his responsible office: ‘And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.’ The Rabbis regarded this incident as vital for the whole idea of succession. All ordinations looked back to this one.… Just as Moses when leaving the world appointed Joshua as shepherd (Num. 27:16–18) so Jesus appoints Peter as shepherd (Jn 21). According to Aboth R. Nathan 17, Moses said to Joshua, ‘This people which I commit to you, I commit to you only as kids and lambs, as frail children.’ Similarly Jesus says to Peter, ‘Feed my lambs’ (21:15). Eusebius in the course of an extended comparison of Christ and Moses regards Peter as answering to Joshua: ‘Moses changed the name of Nave to Jesus, and likewise the Saviour changed that of Simon to Peter.’ ”[3]

Jesus reassures him of his veracity and that he is going ahead to prepare of place for us. Specifically calling us to union with him as he takes us to himself.

Brant Pitre references the common translation of mansion in this passage:

Now people often translate this as many mansions—I think that is the old King James version—and get excited about having a mansion in heaven, but literally the Greek there is monē. It’s from the Greek word menó, which means to remain. So it’s a dwelling place, a place where you stay, a place to remain; which is something that Jesus said over and over again, that he wants to remain in us and us to remain in him. So he says “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places and I’m going to prepare a place for you, that I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am there you will also be.”[4]

Jesus is not calling us to a place where we live as we do on earth. Not a private dwelling that separates us from others. Jesus uses a lot of temple imagery in this passage as John Bergsma points out in his commentary:

Several temple terms are used here. “My Father’s house” is used as a designation for the Temple in other parts of the Gospels (Luke 2:49; John 2:16). The Temple was the largest building in Israel and was full of storerooms, antechambers, and other spaces roundabout, thus: in it there are “many dwelling places” (NAB) or “many rooms” (RSV2CE). Finally, in Judaism the word “place” (Greek topos, Hebrew maqôm) had a special connotation. It often meant “the holy place,” that is, the “sanctuary” (see John 11:48 Greek; cf. Gen 28:17). All this means that Jesus is departing to prepare a Temple for the Apostles to live in.

…

What is this Temple that Jesus prepares? In one sense, it is the Church, elsewhere identified as the Temple of God.[5]

In verse 14:4, Jesus says: “And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas denies this and speaks for the group saying that not only do they not have this knowledge, but also, “How can we know the way?”

I reflect on this regarding the times when I feel uncertain and yet I do know the path I should be on to be drawn closer to Jesus. It is more dread than uncertainty. A lack to trust, not a lack of knowledge. Wanting a high level of certainty in discernment instead of following what my heart already is convicted of.

Jesus’ minor rebuff to Thomas is to reveal more of himself to him and Trinitarian relations involved in this knowledge. That now he does know, since the “the way, and the truth, and the life.” has given him this knowledge.

Brant Pitre comments:

When Jesus says “I am the way,” the Greek word that he uses here is hodos, which literally means a path or road right. And we found this imagery elsewhere in the Gospels, like in the Gospel of Matthew, when he talks about the road to heaven or the road to hell. So in other words he says that “the path to eternal life is narrow and difficult and few are they who find it, but the path to destruction is wide and easy and many are they who find it.” He says that in Matthew 7. So the imagery of being the way is simply that of a road that leads you to salvation, that leads you to heaven.[6]

The paradox is that for us to follow Jesus on this path is to transverse the narrow way without being narrow ourselves. To be narrow is to be inward and ego driven. In following this path our focus ahead is a love of God and neighbor that widens us in our scope and also enables us to love ourselves as we ought.

Returning to Brant Pitre:

And then finally he says “I am the life.” Well what is the life he is talking about here? It is not natural life. It is not just biological life. It is not bios here—which would be the Greek word for what we call natural life. This is zóé in Greek. It is supernatural life, it is eternal life, the life of the Trinity, the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So if you want to have natural life there are all kinds of things you can do. You can eat good food, you can drink good drink, you could stay healthy and exercise and keep yourself in shape; but if you want zóé, if you want the life of the world to come, if you want the life of the Trinity, there is only one place you can go, and that is Jesus of Nazareth. You have to become his disciple. You have to walk on the path with him, learn the fullness of truth from him and live the life that he lived in order to enter into the life of the Trinity.[7]

When Philip in turn asks to be able to see the Father. This calls to mind Moses asking to see God’s glory, to see God’s face. Jesus rebukes Philip for not having to come to know him better considering that he was among the first disciples.

St. Hilary of Poitiers reflects on this passage:

“And therefore the Lord answered Philip thus;—Have I been so long time with you, and ye have not known Me, Philip? He rebukes the Apostle for defective knowledge of Himself; for previously He had said that when He was known the Father was known also. But what is the meaning of this complaint that for so long they had not known Him? It means this; that if they had known Him, they must have recognised in Him the Godhead which belongs to His Father’s nature. For His works were the peculiar works of God. He walked upon the waves, commanded the winds, manifestly, though none could tell how, changed the water into wine and multiplied the loaves, put devils to flight, healed diseases, restored injured limbs and repaired the defects of nature, forgave sins and raised the dead to life. And all this He did while wearing flesh; and He accompanied the works with the assertion that He was the Son of God. Hence it is that He justly complains that they did not recognise in His mysterious human birth and life the action of the nature of God, performing these deeds through the Manhood which He had assumed.”[8]

In verse 14:12, like Moses passing on his gifts and authority to Joshua, or the Elijah to Elisha, Jesus tells them that they will perform greater works. Regarding miraculous healings we see that this is true as seen in the Acts of the Apostles.

John Bergsma looks at another aspect of this:

I’m convinced that the sacraments are at least a partial solution to what Jesus means by the “greater works” to be done by the disciples. The miraculous “signs” of the Gospel of John have been told in such a way that we can see their resemblance to the Church’s sacraments: this is especially the case for the Water to Wine (John 2) and the Feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6) with respect to the Eucharist, and the Healing of the Man Born Blind (John 9) with respect to Baptism. But all the signs Jesus performs have some connection with the sacraments.[9]

He also references other sources as to this aspect:

“But even the raising of the dead to life, the miracle by which a corpse is reanimated with its natural life, is almost nothing in comparison with the resurrection of a soul, which has been lying spiritually dead in sin and has now been raised to the essentially supernatural life of grace.”[10]

“The justification of the ungodly is something greater than the creation of heaven and earth, greater even than the creation of the angels.”[11]

We see this also in the Catechism:

1994 Justification is the most excellent work of God’s love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that “the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth,” because “heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect … will not pass away.”[12] He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy. (312, 412)

Sources

• The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)
• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A
• St. John’s Gospel: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary for Individuals and Groups: Ray, Stephen K.
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
  The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A – John Bergsma
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. Francis Martin, William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)  ↩
2. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A, 5th Sunday of Easter  ↩
3. St. John’s Gospel: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary for Individuals and Groups. Steve Ray, 2002  ↩
4. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, Cycle A, 5th Sunday of Easter  ↩
5. The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, 5th Sunday of Easter, John Bergsma  ↩
6. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, Cycle A, 5th Sunday of Easter  ↩
7. ibid  ↩
8. St. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 7, 36  ↩
9. The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, 5th Sunday of Easter, John Bergsma  ↩
10. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Conversions, 15.  ↩
11. St. Augustine, The City of God, Book IV, chapter 9.  ↩
12. St. Augustine, In Jo. ev. 72, 3: PL 35, 1823.  ↩