Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
NO EXCLUSIVENESS
In their particularism, the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia wanted to monopolize salvation, perhaps allowing pagans to share in it later through them. For this reason, they reject Christ, his Gospel and his missionaries. But no particularistic group can monopolize Christ. He came as the light of the whole world. By coming among us, Christ accepted people so to speak on their own terms, to save them in their own situation, mentality, and culture. So the Church of the apostles was to welcome not only Jews, but also pagans. So that the Church to be missionary today is by welcoming all and serving all. In this way, the Church will do as Christ did, be the sign of Christ to the world, show the distant God is close to and present in us.
Reading 1: Acts 13:44-52
When the next Sabbath came around, practically the whole city showed up to hear the Word of God. Some of the Jews, seeing the crowds, went wild with jealousy and tore into Paul, contradicting everything he was saying, making an ugly scene.
46-47 But Paul and Barnabas didn’t back down. Standing their ground they said, “It was required that God’s Word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it—you’ve made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life—the door is open to all the outsiders. And we’re on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when he said,
I’ve set you up
as light to all nations.
You’ll proclaim salvation
to the four winds and seven seas!”
48-49 When the non-Jewish outsiders heard this, they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God—they honored God’s Word by receiving that life. And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.
50-52 Some of the Jews convinced the most respected women and leading men of the town that their precious way of life was about to be destroyed. Alarmed, they turned on Paul and Barnabas and forced them to leave. Paul and Barnabas shrugged their shoulders and went on to the next town, Iconium, brimming with joy and the Holy Spirit, two happy disciples.
Gospel: Jn 14:7-14
Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
8 Philip said, “Master, show us the Father; then we’ll be content.”
9-10 “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. I don’t just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.
11-14 “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.
Prayer
Lord our God,
you are distant and unknown, and yet so near
that you know and love and save us
through your Son, Jesus Christ.
May he be present in us and in our actions
that we may do the same works
of justice, truth and loving service
and thus, become the sign to the world,
that your Son is alive
and that you are a saving God,
now and forever.
Reflection:
6 May 2023
John 14:7-14
Ask, and you will receive
John the Evangelist used Philip’s misunderstanding to underline his message to his community to whom he wrote the Gospel, towards the end of the first century: Jesus is the Son of God the Father, and he lives in the Father. If anyone wishes to see God the Father, look at His Son, who revealed himself to us.
Many people in the course of their lives echo the same request of Philip: Show us the Father. Since God in himself is invisible and unseen, it is not unusual to hear this question from our surroundings: Where is God? Is God real?, and “What is God like? For us, Christians, the question has already been answered. God is like Jesus. To know the person and teachings of Jesus is to know God.
For John’s readers, who had not known Jesus personally, it was their own experience of fraternity and the work of the risen Christ in them that would explain that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Today, that is how we grow in our faith in Christ. Although we don’t see the person of Jesus, we experience his presence and his works in our lives, in the life of the Church and in the world.
The Gospel ends with a huge promise: Jesus repeatedly tells us in the gospels that if we ask, we will receive. When we ask in Jesus’s name, it is not that Jesus forwards our prayers on our behalf to God the Father; rather, the Father will reward us directly and instantly. Hence, why do we not ask so that we may receive and our joy may be full?
Today, let us make a list of the most authentic needs of your heart and go shopping with the Lord at his store of blessings.