05-05-2012, 02:45 PM
Scripture Reflections
03 May, 2012, Feast of Ss Philip and James, Apostles
APOSTOLIC WITNESSING IS THE PROCLAMATION OF THE RISEN CHRIST TRANSFORMING AND WORKING IN OUR LIVES
SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 COR 15:1-8; JN 14:6-14
“Lord, let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied.” Indeed, we are all seeking for God. We cannot be happy until God dwells in us, or rather, when He makes His home in us. In finding God, we find rest. The truth remains that in every human person, we are seeking for a deep encounter with God. As St Augustine says, “our hearts are restless until we rest in him.” This explains why Catholic teaching speaks of the beatific vision as the ultimate realization of everyone as it means a personal encounter with God. With the beatific vision, we are fulfilled and complete. But until then, surely this encounter with God, even if it is not a definitive encounter, is something that we can already experience in this life, as a foretaste. St John wrote, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” (1 Jn 3:2-3)
How is this possible? Firstly, we come to the Father of life and the source of Truth through Jesus, since Jesus is the Way. As Jesus said, “No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know my Father too. From this moment, you know him and have seen him.” Jesus further clarifies this when He said to Philip, “To have seen me is to have seen the Father.” Indeed, if Jesus had expressed His disappointment with Philip that though he had been with Him all that time, he still did not know Him, it was because Philip, by failing to recognize Him as the Father in person, had also missed seeing the Father. Jesus is therefore God because God is in Jesus. If Jesus is the Way, it is because He is the embodiment of the Father. In and through His humanity, we are invited to see the divinity of God, encounter His love and share in His life.
Secondly to come to the Father, we must come not only through, but also with, Jesus. In other words we must walk with Jesus on the Way. This way requires us to be witnesses to His death and resurrection. In the first reading, St Paul speaks of the testimony of the apostles to the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. This testimony to the paschal mystery of Jesus of course is more than just a personal witnessing of His death and resurrection but also of a personal experience of one’s own insertion into the paschal mystery. Hence, St Paul also speaks of His personal transformation as a consequence of inserting Himself into the paschal mystery of Christ.
Indeed, our testimony of the paschal mystery of Christ is not simply just a word testimony, but also a living testimony. It is our transformation that will convince people. So we must truly live out the paschal mystery. We are called to live the Good News, which is the paschal mystery, so that we can experience the power of the Risen Christ transforming our lives through death to self. Both Philip and James were martyred in the process of proclaiming the Good News. They truly were both witnesses to Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. As the opening prayer has it, “By the help of their prayers, may we share in the suffering, death and resurrection of your own Son and come to the eternal vision of your glory.” Unless we have really suffered with Christ in our attempts to be faithful to the Father’s will, we will never be able to experience His resurrection.
Finally, we must come to the Father in Christ. Just as Jesus is in the Father and the Father in Him, living in Him and doing the work He was doing, then analogously we must allow Jesus to work in us and through us. This is possible with the coming of the Holy Spirit. The truth is that no transformation is possible unless Jesus lives and works in us. Such a hope is promised by Jesus, “I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform greater works, because I am going to the Father.” Indeed, it will no longer be just we working at the level of our humanity but it will be the work of grace elevating us beyond our human strength and reason. With the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit, we too will be able to do what Jesus did.
As a consequence, all our prayers will be answered and all that we do will be efficacious because we do everything in His name. This explains why Jesus could promise us “whatever you ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” For when Jesus lives in us, we will only ask and will what Jesus would ask and will. Everything that is done in union with the Risen Lord will bear fruit just as Jesus did everything in accordance with the Father’s will. We too, when we align our will with God’s will, God will work in us.
Consequently, if we come to the Father through Christ, with Christ in His paschal mystery and in Christ, in union with Him, then we can truly claim that God is living in us. Transformed into Him, we are configured and thus become the presence and sacrament of Christ to others, just as Christ is the sacrament of the Father. In this way, we become the presence of Christ to others not only in word and deed but also in our very selves. Thus by so doing we are heeding the reminder of Paul, that the gospel will save us only if we keep believing exactly what has been preached to us. This faith of course entails the living out of the gospel.
In recapitulation, all that we say about going to the Father through, with and in Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit, is summed up in the great doxology at mass when we proclaim “through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever.” It is through Christ that we encounter the Father in person; with Christ that we are transformed into Him; in Christ and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, that God works in us and unites us to the Trinity more deeply. It is for this reason that the Church upholds the Eucharist as the summit of its liturgy because at mass, we celebrate the presence of God in Jesus in our midst through the Eucharist, and in the process we become identified and transformed with and in Him in the Holy Spirit. Consequently, we can also say confidently with Jesus that, just as the Father is in Him, living and working in Him, so Jesus is in us, living and working through us.
Today we celebrate the feasts of Sts Philip and James, apostles of Jesus Christ. Who is an apostle? He is supposedly the ambassador of Christ. Indeed, both Philip and James testified to Christ through their preaching, writing and by their very lives, leading people to Jesus. In the case of Philip, we know that he was the one who led Nathaniel and the Greeks to Jesus. He was also the one Jesus asked to feed the multitude, for He knew that Philip was a man of concern. James, the son of Alphaeus, too, was the head of the Church in Jerusalem. He was the one who wrote the epistle and was a cousin of Jesus. In their own ways, they led people to God through Christ because of the way they participated in His paschal mystery, since both suffered deaths of a martyr. We too are called to imitate them by configuring ourselves to Christ, firstly by coming through Him to the Father; being with Him in our lives and living and working in Him so that His presence becomes real in us and for others. We too must bring Jesus to others through our testimony of what God is doing in our lives, how He is working in us, and most of all, how we are dying to our selfishness, and living for God and for others. Have you spoken to someone about what Jesus has done for you? Have you shared with someone how knowing the Lord has made a difference in your life? Have you, through your cheerful and patient suffering, especially in sickness and unjust suffering, revealed the face of God?
03 May, 2012, Feast of Ss Philip and James, Apostles
APOSTOLIC WITNESSING IS THE PROCLAMATION OF THE RISEN CHRIST TRANSFORMING AND WORKING IN OUR LIVES
SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 COR 15:1-8; JN 14:6-14
“Lord, let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied.” Indeed, we are all seeking for God. We cannot be happy until God dwells in us, or rather, when He makes His home in us. In finding God, we find rest. The truth remains that in every human person, we are seeking for a deep encounter with God. As St Augustine says, “our hearts are restless until we rest in him.” This explains why Catholic teaching speaks of the beatific vision as the ultimate realization of everyone as it means a personal encounter with God. With the beatific vision, we are fulfilled and complete. But until then, surely this encounter with God, even if it is not a definitive encounter, is something that we can already experience in this life, as a foretaste. St John wrote, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” (1 Jn 3:2-3)
How is this possible? Firstly, we come to the Father of life and the source of Truth through Jesus, since Jesus is the Way. As Jesus said, “No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know my Father too. From this moment, you know him and have seen him.” Jesus further clarifies this when He said to Philip, “To have seen me is to have seen the Father.” Indeed, if Jesus had expressed His disappointment with Philip that though he had been with Him all that time, he still did not know Him, it was because Philip, by failing to recognize Him as the Father in person, had also missed seeing the Father. Jesus is therefore God because God is in Jesus. If Jesus is the Way, it is because He is the embodiment of the Father. In and through His humanity, we are invited to see the divinity of God, encounter His love and share in His life.
Secondly to come to the Father, we must come not only through, but also with, Jesus. In other words we must walk with Jesus on the Way. This way requires us to be witnesses to His death and resurrection. In the first reading, St Paul speaks of the testimony of the apostles to the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. This testimony to the paschal mystery of Jesus of course is more than just a personal witnessing of His death and resurrection but also of a personal experience of one’s own insertion into the paschal mystery. Hence, St Paul also speaks of His personal transformation as a consequence of inserting Himself into the paschal mystery of Christ.
Indeed, our testimony of the paschal mystery of Christ is not simply just a word testimony, but also a living testimony. It is our transformation that will convince people. So we must truly live out the paschal mystery. We are called to live the Good News, which is the paschal mystery, so that we can experience the power of the Risen Christ transforming our lives through death to self. Both Philip and James were martyred in the process of proclaiming the Good News. They truly were both witnesses to Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. As the opening prayer has it, “By the help of their prayers, may we share in the suffering, death and resurrection of your own Son and come to the eternal vision of your glory.” Unless we have really suffered with Christ in our attempts to be faithful to the Father’s will, we will never be able to experience His resurrection.
Finally, we must come to the Father in Christ. Just as Jesus is in the Father and the Father in Him, living in Him and doing the work He was doing, then analogously we must allow Jesus to work in us and through us. This is possible with the coming of the Holy Spirit. The truth is that no transformation is possible unless Jesus lives and works in us. Such a hope is promised by Jesus, “I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform greater works, because I am going to the Father.” Indeed, it will no longer be just we working at the level of our humanity but it will be the work of grace elevating us beyond our human strength and reason. With the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit, we too will be able to do what Jesus did.
As a consequence, all our prayers will be answered and all that we do will be efficacious because we do everything in His name. This explains why Jesus could promise us “whatever you ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” For when Jesus lives in us, we will only ask and will what Jesus would ask and will. Everything that is done in union with the Risen Lord will bear fruit just as Jesus did everything in accordance with the Father’s will. We too, when we align our will with God’s will, God will work in us.
Consequently, if we come to the Father through Christ, with Christ in His paschal mystery and in Christ, in union with Him, then we can truly claim that God is living in us. Transformed into Him, we are configured and thus become the presence and sacrament of Christ to others, just as Christ is the sacrament of the Father. In this way, we become the presence of Christ to others not only in word and deed but also in our very selves. Thus by so doing we are heeding the reminder of Paul, that the gospel will save us only if we keep believing exactly what has been preached to us. This faith of course entails the living out of the gospel.
In recapitulation, all that we say about going to the Father through, with and in Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit, is summed up in the great doxology at mass when we proclaim “through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever.” It is through Christ that we encounter the Father in person; with Christ that we are transformed into Him; in Christ and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, that God works in us and unites us to the Trinity more deeply. It is for this reason that the Church upholds the Eucharist as the summit of its liturgy because at mass, we celebrate the presence of God in Jesus in our midst through the Eucharist, and in the process we become identified and transformed with and in Him in the Holy Spirit. Consequently, we can also say confidently with Jesus that, just as the Father is in Him, living and working in Him, so Jesus is in us, living and working through us.
Today we celebrate the feasts of Sts Philip and James, apostles of Jesus Christ. Who is an apostle? He is supposedly the ambassador of Christ. Indeed, both Philip and James testified to Christ through their preaching, writing and by their very lives, leading people to Jesus. In the case of Philip, we know that he was the one who led Nathaniel and the Greeks to Jesus. He was also the one Jesus asked to feed the multitude, for He knew that Philip was a man of concern. James, the son of Alphaeus, too, was the head of the Church in Jerusalem. He was the one who wrote the epistle and was a cousin of Jesus. In their own ways, they led people to God through Christ because of the way they participated in His paschal mystery, since both suffered deaths of a martyr. We too are called to imitate them by configuring ourselves to Christ, firstly by coming through Him to the Father; being with Him in our lives and living and working in Him so that His presence becomes real in us and for others. We too must bring Jesus to others through our testimony of what God is doing in our lives, how He is working in us, and most of all, how we are dying to our selfishness, and living for God and for others. Have you spoken to someone about what Jesus has done for you? Have you shared with someone how knowing the Lord has made a difference in your life? Have you, through your cheerful and patient suffering, especially in sickness and unjust suffering, revealed the face of God?