Daily Retreat 04/19/08
2008 Apr 19 Sat: Easter Weekday
Acts 13: 44-52/ Ps 97(98): 1. 2-3ab. 3cd-4/ Jn 14: 7-14
From today’s readings: “ The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.... All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation by our God.... Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?”
Communion
At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke quite a bit about His unity, His communion, with God the Father. He was concerned that His disciples understand that unity and communion with Him (Jesus) was equivalent to unity and communion with God the Father.
So, when Philip asked Jesus to “show us the Father,” his request betrayed the disciples’ own lack of understanding in this fundamental matter. For Philip and the others were evidently looking for a theophany, a personal revelation of God, such as when He appeared to Moses in the Book of Exodus. But as Jesus patiently and persistently explains, He Himself is the incarnated theophany, God-in-the-flesh, so that “whoever has seen Me [Jesus], has seen the Father.”
For many people today, the whole concept of “unity with God” is dismissed as abstract and personally irrelevant, even though, in point of fact, the quest for unity with God is actually the defining task of our earthly existence. Thus, Jesus gave His all to show that unity to God was not to be reduced to some meaningless merely mental pursuit, but rather, because of the Lord’s incarnated theophany, unity with God is the intimate and intensely personal communion with His loving Divine and Real Presence.
Acts 13: 44-52/ Ps 97(98): 1. 2-3ab. 3cd-4/ Jn 14: 7-14
From today’s readings: “ The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.... All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation by our God.... Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?”
Communion
At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke quite a bit about His unity, His communion, with God the Father. He was concerned that His disciples understand that unity and communion with Him (Jesus) was equivalent to unity and communion with God the Father.
So, when Philip asked Jesus to “show us the Father,” his request betrayed the disciples’ own lack of understanding in this fundamental matter. For Philip and the others were evidently looking for a theophany, a personal revelation of God, such as when He appeared to Moses in the Book of Exodus. But as Jesus patiently and persistently explains, He Himself is the incarnated theophany, God-in-the-flesh, so that “whoever has seen Me [Jesus], has seen the Father.”
For many people today, the whole concept of “unity with God” is dismissed as abstract and personally irrelevant, even though, in point of fact, the quest for unity with God is actually the defining task of our earthly existence. Thus, Jesus gave His all to show that unity to God was not to be reduced to some meaningless merely mental pursuit, but rather, because of the Lord’s incarnated theophany, unity with God is the intimate and intensely personal communion with His loving Divine and Real Presence.
posted by FrPitstick | 4/18/2008
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