BELIEVING THE WORD OF GOD

SAINTS PHILIP AND JAMES, APOSTLES

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP

1 Cor 15:1-8; Ps 19:2-5; Jn 14:6-14

Believing the Word of God

Taking up the thread of our ongoing discussion on our union in faith with Jesus Christ and our union in grace with Mary the mother of Jesus, we consider the effect of error in the two unions. Because faith in Jesus Christ is truly faith in the word of God, and ultimately about faith in God, a little error in the principle of our faith would cause a big problem in our union with Jesus and Mary. Before now, we have harped on the holiness of the word as coming from God living in his word. The word of God represents God; hence, we should accord the same reverence to the word as we accord God himself. This underscores the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the reverence we owe his humanity. Jesus made this clear to Philip when he demanded to see the Father. “Philip said, ‘Lord, let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied.’ ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip,’ said Jesus to him ‘and you still do not know me? ‘To have seen me is to have seen the Father, so how can you say, ‘’Let us see the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Because the Father lives in him, his words are not his own but from the Father. 

What we need to access the Father within the Son of Man is faith in the word spoken by him in the name of God. To have an encounter with the Father, we must believe the word as coming from the Father and not just from a mere man. The Lord's earlier response to Thomas' demand to know the way to where he was going already contains this meaning. Jesus is the way as the one who speaks the word of God; as such, he is the Sacrament of God. He is also the Truth as the Eternal Word of God who contains the full knowledge of the Father. He is the Life as the giver of this knowledge of the Father to creatures. The knowledge of the Father confers eternal life because that knowledge is God. We started with faith and ended with eternal or fullness of life in God. We understand how important the content of our faith is in the whole order of salvation. On this same issue, Paul’s words were emphatic: “Brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, the gospel that you received and in which you are firmly established; because the gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I preached to you—believing anything else will not lead to anything.”

To tamper with the content of the Gospel is to tamper with the salvation of many souls. So many do not achieve the second union of grace with Mary because of the wrong doctrine. The union with Mary coincides with the salvation of the souls thus united. The apostles we celebrate today, Philip and James, gave their lives for the proclamation of the Gospel and to safeguard the purity of its contents. James presided over the Council of Jerusalem and ruled with the other apostles that Judaism, with its demands, should be kept separate from the Gospel's demands of faith and love. Philip demanded to encounter the Father and discovered that Jesus Christ is truly the Sacrament of the Father. Their word was the word of Jesus Christ. It goes forth as the word of God through all the earth to proclaim the glory of God. All who firmly believe the Gospel are conformed to the Woman who believed and conceived God in her womb. Faith in the Gospel leads us to conceive God in our hearts and bring him forth as the apostles did for all to encounter and be saved. 

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, that imitating the life and zeal of the blessed apostles Philip and James we may believe firmly the Gospel of your Son Jesus Christ and arrive at the true knowledge of his divinity in eternity of life and joy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BECOMING A DEPENDABLE FRIEND

Image
FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...
Read more

UNDERSTANDING OUR AFFLICTIONS

Image
ST. JEROME, PRIEST, DOCTOR Job 1:6-22; Ps 17:1-3,6-7; Lk 9:46-50 Salvation of the Just from the affliction of evil We have the beginning of Job in the first reading today. The reading has many hidden lessons we can learn to foster our relationship with God. The first that seems very obvious is the fact of Satan attending to God with the sons of God. By this, we must understand that every rational creature of God is among his sons. They all attend to God, from whom they receive life and sustenance. God sustains all his creatures in being, both material and immaterial creatures. They also ask God for permission to carry out a course of action. Nothing moves in the heavens and on earth without God knowing and permitting it. The attending of rational creatures is what we call prayer. The good and bad angels pray to God for permission to carry out actions or bring about ends that agree with his divine will. God usually hears or permits these prayers based on his divine justice in acco...
Read more

The offsprings of the Old man and the New Man

Image
Monday, fifth week of lent/2024 Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP Offsprings of Old man and New Man To be able to live the new life within the new Covenant in Jesus Christ, the old life must come to an end. The distinctive difference between the old man and the new man is the focus of desires. The old man and all who live by him have their desires focussed on the satisfaction of self. On the other hand, the new man and those living by him desires only to fulfil God's holy will. Thus, the old man and his offspring obey the law of sin and death. Living for self alone breeds sins, and sin causes death. So, the old man and all living by him are dead and harbingers of death to others. They are adept at manipulating the Law of God to perpetuate their interest and selfish desires. An example of this skill is the treatment the two old judges of Israel in Babylon meted out to Susanna, wife of Joachim, employing the Law of Moses as given in the first reading. “Two elderly men had ...
Read more