OUR NEED FOR KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST

SATURDAY, TWENTY EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Eph 1:15-23; Ps 8:2-7; Lk 12:8-12

The Knowledge and love of God

Beginning with the heavenly blessings that God has blessed us in Christ, which St. Paul expounded in the passage we read yesterday, he prays for the Christian community at Ephesus and us that we may come to the knowledge of God. This knowledge of God is beyond the human mind because God is infinitely knowable. But the knowledge St. Paul prays for us here is a working knowledge that a Christian needs to live out his vocation here on earth. It is the knowledge of God that we acquire through the revelation of Jesus Christ in our renewed spirit and not through any creature on earth. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand the aforesaid heavenly blessings by revealing the divinity of Jesus Christ to us. The entrance into the mystery of Jesus Christ is also the knowledge of the Father because the Son is the knowledge of the Father. Hence, to know the Son is to know the Father also. According to Paul, we can access this knowledge only through faith in Jesus Christ, like through a doorway or gate leading into the heavenly pasture. “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.” Hence, the knowledge comes with our new birth and grows as we grow in spirit.

Because the knowledge of Jesus Christ through faith in his sacred humanity leads us to his divinity, the scriptures and the Fathers describe its growth as passing through faith to vision. Concerning this knowledge in Jesus Christ, he calls himself our eternal pasture, and his sacred humanity he describes as the gate leading to the heavenly pasture. Hence, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our hearts after our baptism, leads us through this gate into the eternal pastures as he guides us into the mysteries of Jesus Christ. It is a spiritual and interior journey and not an exterior. “May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers.” This shows that the knowledge of our heavenly blessings can only be heard in Christ Jesus through prayer and meditation on the word of God. We must never forget that afflictions are part and parcel of the revelation of God, for they make up part of our journey into the mystery of Christ. Our knowledge of Jesus Christ is as the crucified One and not just as the glorified Lord. Without knowledge of his cross or suffering, which Paul says overflows into our lives as his members, how can we possibly claim to know Jesus Christ as crucified and risen Lord? To experience the power of his resurrection, we must experience the same power working for us in our afflictions and sufferings.

Subsequently, those who preach a gospel devoid of cross and pains with which all humanity is equally afflicted, believers and nonbelievers, are peddling a counterfeit gospel. They deny Jesus Christ by removing the cross from the gospel they preach to people. Our Lord threatens to disown them before the angels in heaven. “I tell you, if anyone openly declares himself for me in the presence of men, the Son of Man will declare himself for him in the presence of the angels. But the man who disowns me in the presence of men will be disowned in the presence of God’s angels.” For the believers who are going through trials and afflictions, we know it is difficult to see the hand of God in our experience of severe pains, affliction, and suffering. It is that we may make sense of these trials that our Lord suffered and died. So, our trials are part of our journey into his mysteries. The Holy Spirit is still with us, guiding us through these mysteries to a better knowledge of Christ, as much as we have not lost faith and hope in God. Hence, Jesus warns us against blaspheming him. “Everyone who says a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” It is okay, our Lord explains, if we turn away sometimes from Christ because of our difficulties due to our lack of knowledge of his mysteries. But we must not reject the greatest gift of the Father, the Holy Spirit, who is Love guiding us on our journey. We must never despair on the way.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace not to abandon the journey to our heavenly glory because of the difficulties on the way, but fill us with your love through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to trust in your loving plan and almighty power working to bring us to our journey’s end in heaven.