OUR COMING TO THE FATHER


MONDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE   

Acts 14:5-18; Ps 115:1-4,15-16; Jn 14:21-20

The Word belongs to the Father

From all eternity, the Word belongs to God the Father because He is God from God and Light from Light. The Word carries the will of the Father and nothing else. He is God with the Father and does the will of God in all things. The Word brought things into existence according to the will of the Father. Everything created by the Word is therefore good, for they conform to the will of God the Father. The Word became flesh for our salvation according to the Father’s will and died for our salvation to fulfil the will of the Father for us. Thus, obedience to the Father’s will defines the Person of the Word. When we observe and imitate the life of the Son of Man, the Word Incarnate, we receive the Holy Spirit of adoption, who gives us the reality of the Son’s life. He gives us a spiritual birth by which we are enabled to walk the Way defined by the Word in his human nature. The Way leads us to fullness of knowledge of the Son, the Truth; the Truth confers the knowledge of the Father on us, for he is the full expression of the Father.

Our gradual initiation into the life of the Son of Man leads to the communion of the Trinity. The Son of Man is the Way into the Trinitarian communion. This is what he told his disciples. “Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me; and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him.” The love with which the Son reveals himself to us when we keep his word and imitate his life is the Holy Spirit. The Son of God became man by the will of the Father for this purpose: to attract us by his life among us, to love the Father as he does. Jude the apostle’s question made him clarify this point. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” Since our attraction to Jesus Christ is the initiation of love in our hearts, the Holy Spirit leads us to conversion and forms Jesus Christ within us when He gives us a spiritual birth. The Holy Spirit does the same thing he did in the Blessed Virgin Mary in each of us when we get converted. For Jesus to be formed in us, there must be a likeness to Mary in our souls. Her fiat must be heard in our souls for us to conceive Jesus Christ. This is why scriptures call us her children, similar to our being children of God by bearing the life of Jesus Christ through bearing the word of God. “Those who do not love me do not keep my words. And my word is not my own: it is the word of the one who sent me.” This is, indeed, the mystery of our salvation.

The formation of Jesus Christ in us by the power of the Holy Spirit is an ongoing work. He continues this formation work in us as he leads us into all truths as promised by the Lord. The more truths we come to know and embrace, the more the life of Jesus is present in us. “I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.” If the Son of God is formed in us, the more we know heavenly truths, those who reject or obstruct the Gospel fight against the coming of the kingdom of God. The Jews played this role when they obstructed the preaching of Paul and Barnabas. “Eventually, with the connivance of the authorities a move was made by pagans as well as Jews to make attacks on the apostles and to stone them.” Paul and Barnabas, who had made steady progress in their knowledge of the mysteries of heaven in Jesus Christ, had now become representatives of the Son of Man. In them, the words and works of the Son of Man continued to spread to more people and nations. The miracles they worked according to the promptings of the Holy Spirit proved the life of Jesus Christ in them. We may wonder why we are not working miracles. This thought should not bother us, because everything they did was prompted by the Holy Spirit, therefore, in conformity with God’s will. The Spirit will prompt us when he needs to work a miracle, and does that very often, but secretly, to keep us from being carried away by such external signs. The essential is that we keep the word of God with love in our minds and hearts.

Let us pray: May your right hand, O Lord, we pray, encompass your family with perpetual help, so that, defended from all wickedness by the Resurrection of your Only Begotten Son, we may make our way by means of your heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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