Daily Gospel Reflection – Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
May 6, 2023
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Gospel: Jn 14:7-14
Jesus said to his disciples: "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 Jesus, "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. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “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.”
When we pray in the name of Jesus, we are relying on his intimacy with the Father, trusting that the Father will listen to his Son who pleads on our behalf. In the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear that Jesus, like us in all things but sin, a fellow sufferer with us, has entered as our advocate into the heavenly court. Risking a crude comparison, it is as though Jesus is our man in City Hall, a representative for us in the place of ultimate power.
Mind you, this analogy breaks down in the measure that the Father must not be construed as a reluctant and distracted executive, annoyed by the petty appeals of his constituents, which are mediated by a persistent lobbyist. For the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus has become our advocate, precisely because the Father wanted him to assume this role for us; therefore, presumably, the Father delights in hearing us call upon him through his Son.
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