Daily Gospel Reflection: Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
April 27, 2024
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 declares his mutual indwelling with God: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”
Charles Williams, a friend of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, stated that the master idea of Christianity is “coinherence,” what he described as mutual indwelling.
We sometimes forget that we are all interconnected. Yet how do we often identify ourselves? Almost exclusively through the naming of relationships: we are sons, brothers, daughters, mothers, fathers, members of organizations, or members of the Church.
Read the Gospel today and see how Jesus identifies himself. Jesus reveals the coinherence that obtains within the very existence of God. “Master,” Philip says to him, “show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus replies, “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 this be true, unless the Father and the Son coinhere in each other? Though Father and Son are really distinct, they are utterly implicated in each other by a mutual act of love. As Jesus says, “The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.”
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