Reading
John 14:6-14
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Comment
The emphasis on Jesus incarnate as the manifestation of the Father is proper to the gospel of John. God, "unapproachable light" (1 Tim 6:16) reveals himself by veiling himself from the humanity of Christ. The "unknown god" of the Greek scholars (Acts 17:23), at whose altar Paul met in Athens, makes himself present and knowable to man, without making his own mystery vanish, but bringing the infinite into the finite, charging the words and actions of the incarnate Son with an inexhaustible meaning.
If Philip still struggles to understand, at the end of Jesus' ministry, asking him for a theophany, John, after the completion of the paschal event, will no longer have doubts: "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16). He who gave himself by making himself present through the Son, true God, made true man, to share our condition up to suffering and death, this is not only the being over whom nothing can be thought, as the philosophers had guessed; in him being and love coincide: the fullness of life that is given outside of himself.
There is no greater work than converting men to the knowledge of this mystery: "converting" means turning their gaze towards Jesus, the image of the Father. There is no greater work because, as Philip affirms: "show us the Father and that will be enough for us" (v. 8). Discovering ourselves as children in the Son, loved by the Father, is the fullness of grace.
Jesus invites us to ask in his name, which does not simply mean adding a formula to our prayers. It means that the believer's prayer must be in accordance with the needs of the kingdom of God, that is, with the will of the Father; it must also be founded on the merits of Christ, which alone can fulfill it. Ultimately, it means participating in the communion of the Father with the Son, glorifying them in the Holy Spirit. Thus also in our prayer, God reveals himself as a relationship and, therefore, as love.
Prayer
Show us your face, Almighty God, by opening us to understand the mysteries revealed in your Son; so that our life may be a hymn of praise to your glory. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
