Jul 13 - Homily for Today

+ We have a treasure in the gospel passage today! Jesus first makes it quite clear that everything that he is trying to get across to people is most easily accessible by the lowly and the childlike, and not the wise and the learned (unless, of course, they make every effort to become like children in their sense of awe, wonder, inquisitiveness, open-mindedness and sense of fairness).

And then Jesus says something quite startling: he says that everything that he is giving us is actually gotten by him from his Father. And then he says some amazing things: (sometimes we quickly gloss over these things, but today, let’s go a bit more slowly): Jesus says: “no one knows the Son except the Father” – this in our day and age after 2000 years of hearing the gospels, and having them preached to us, and having read academic discourses on them, we might think that we “have the market pretty well cornered” as far as this Jesus of Nazareth goes. We know him! We know him very well! 

But even St. Thomas Aquinas who wrote volumes and volumes on him, at the end, put down his pen and said: “after all this: I really don’t know anything about you, Jesus, more that the fact that you are really there (in the tabernacle)! No, only God the Father knows God the Son, knows Jesus – completely, no one else possibly could – but it is our passion to want each day delve deeper and deeper into the marvelous mystery of who he really is, and to know him by experiencing his presence, because as we do this we get brighter and brighter, lighter and lighter and smarter and smarter: and this is a good thing, especially facing the world that comes at us with such great force every day.

And then, in our gospel passage, Jesus goes on and says really conversely and spiritually logically that the only one who could possibly know God the Father is he himself – this is no surprise; but what is surprising is when he adds: “and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” This is great news; and is frankly, quite shocking! Anyone, anyone at all is potentially eligible to delve into the very heart of God the Father, and to know him as his own beloved Son does (and what is unique here is that we each will one day know God completely [as the Son does] in the Beatific Vision); the most potentially eligible for this now are the ones who really want to do this, and try all throughout each day to conform their lives to the life of Christ, so to make it easier for God the Father recognize them and see their eligibility: those who most resemble God the Son, will see and be with God the Father forever and ever!

This has always been the divine plan! This is the mystery that even children understand. God wants to give his children an amazing family relationship and life with him and all our brothers and sisters that is never-ending!

May we be open to love and to mysteries and to amazing childlike experiences of God’s making this very day! Amen!